Any Info Regarding This Penny Black Stamped With Black Cross Please?

***Cover Image added by Moderator***

Poor stamp........ And welcome to the forum


Peter

thank you for your welcome, im newbie but I couldnt upload the cover it was on. looks important and early.

Please post a decent scan of the entire article,
and the back.

Welcome lisawill76,
I just sent you an email.
Don

Since the Penny Black was first issued in 1840 (68.8 million of them), then yes, any cover using it will be "early." Whether or not the cover is "important" is an entirely different matter.

Thanks Don !

So far 2d Tuppeny Post, Received Ponders End London,
to St Petrocs, Bodmin, Devon Cornwall (260 miles)

More to pay, 2d Tuppence.
Supposedly paid at receipt?

No supplied backstamps or evidence

Any corrections , most welcome.




Saint Petroc
Saint Petroc or Petrock was a British prince and Christian saint. Probably born in South Wales, he primarily ministered to the Britons of Devon and Cornwall then forming the kingdom of Dumnonia where he is associated with a monastery at Padstow, which is named after him. Wikipedia


Local slang....

Cover to : The Revd John Wallis, vicar of Bodmin 1817–66, died 6th December 1866 aged 77.

Etymology
Ponders End is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822. It was recorded in 1593 as Ponders ende meaning the "end or quarter of the parish associated with the Ponder family" from the Middle English ende. John Ponder is mentioned in a document of 1373; the surname is believed to mean a "keeper of, or dweller by, a fish-pond or mill-pond".

PS: "Black Cross" is referred to as a "Maltese Cross", originally in red ink,
then changed to black.

Guess:
Probably your cover travelled London to Bristol, by Rail, (Great Western Railroad) thence onwards by Mail Coach.
The average life of a mail coach horse in service was a mere three years.

The Bristol & Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844.

Rather an odd one. Imperforated stamps of this era were frequently not neatly cut between the stamps on the sheet. Other survivors will have been haphazardly cut when removed from the original cover. But the awful cutting on this - the wonky right-hand side, the chevron cut at the bottom, the cutting through a large chunk of the left-hand side - would make me rather suspicious of this one.

These stamps came in sheets of 240 stamps, hence representing a total value of £1. There were twenty rows of twelve stamps in a sheet. Each row amounted to 1 shilling in stamps.

The letters in the lower left corner ran from A to T in each column. The letters in the lower right corner ran from A to L. Yours has a K and is the penultimate stamp from a row, Therefore, it comes from the eleventh column in the sheet.

My best guess would be that it is stamp AK. Your stamp is missing a large part of the image. This makes it difficult to determine the plate from which it was printed. There were 11 plates. The first plate has two distinctive stages.

I am tempted to agree with GeoffHa. If you look at the lower and left sides of your stamps, you will see there is a clear margin between the stamp and the part of the Maltese Cross cancellation on the entire. Since the stamp is cut deep into the design here, there is no margin and you would expect the cancellation to continue at some point. It looks like someone affixed a stamp to the entire after it lost its original stamp.

The stamp is so badly damaged that it has no monetary value at all. It would be a space filler. If the stamp, indeed, was added, the entire will not hold monetary value either.

It would be interesting to know if there is a date stamped on the reverse of the entire.

Welcome Lisa,

A scan of the back of the cover and also the inside contents would be most helpful.

As it has been presented, the cover was lodged at the Ponders End Receiving Office and would've been stamped with the 1d black at the time of lodging.

On weighing at the Inland Office, the letter would've been found to be over half an ounce, rated 2 (for 2d) and the "more to pay" handstamp applied.

I think the recipient would have been asked to pay the "postage due" charge of 1d, but hopefully somebody can confirm this.

Stamps this poorly cut are not unheard of, but in this state I cannot plate the stamp.

There are two problems.

Firstly, the Ponders End handstamp was (most likely) issued in late 1842, by which time 1d reds were in use. The handstamp is particularly rare.

Secondly, the date on the far right of the cover gives every impression of saying 1806, hence my request for a scan of the inside contents.

Hope this info helps!

Here is the back of lisawill76's cover.


Don

"The stamp is so badly damaged that it has no monetary value at all."

While it may be relatively low, it does have a little value (same can be said of the pound these days).

Interesting, I had thought it struck later as it passed through the London Chief office.
(always learning)

Thanks Don.

Unfortunately it doesn't help us date the cover.