Railway Stamps

Hi to all
I know that the Chemin de Fer are railway stamps, and the others have little labels that say do not deliver on Sundays. (These are all part of the accumulations that my family had.
Do they actually have a value as stamps.

Regards

Horamakhet

The stamps that were issued with dominical labels (Do Not Deliver on Sunday) are supposed to have the label attached for full catalogue value. Like the railway stamps, values vary widely. A lot are of nominal catalogue value, but there are some with some CV. Each one would have to be i.d.'d separately, because there are no easy rules of thumb.

Oh yes, they do indeed.

The hexagonal cancel (six-sided) is something I have started collecting especially.

The other cancels are all valid as the railways were are are used in Belgium to deliver mail or at least parcels.

Quite collectible by railway enthusiasts and cancel enthusiasts. Most of yours are listed in the back-of-the-book section of Scott's catalogues. Belgium has its own local catalog.

may we see the stamps in a better scan perhaps? Try scanning the two areas of stamps separately and posting two pics, or scanning the whole at something like 75 pixels per inch as that gives you a bigger picture but a smaller file size, although with a smaller resolution like that the detail is sometimes lost. On screen, usually, it is OK for general viewing though.

Hi Puzzler
I hope that these scans are better. Some have some of the inscription reversed, is this normal. Scans of do not deliver on sundays following.




Horamakhet

Hi Puzzler

Here are the scans of the others
Regards
Horamakhet

I collect the Belgian Railway stamps,
I generally pay 20c each, the hexagonal cancel
is worth more, around $1 each.

Much better, although they would have been even better if you had left the on the black sheets for a background. That makes the stamps pop out and viewing the perforations much easier. And if you had included all of the stamp and left some margin around the edges for framing purposes and to view any possible damages or repairs done. For future reference.

Rod and others have given tutorials on scanning but I see most people just do what is easiest and less hassle. The normal human thing to do perhaps.

A very good second go in my opinion.




I am not sure exactly what you mean so I will explore a few different ideas.

=If you mean the cancels are actually upside-down compared to the orientation of the stamp, then that is normal.

I have never read an explanation of this , as it happens on many stamps, but I will hazard a guess or two. It could be that it was found to more time efficient to handle the mail upside-down because handling it rightside-up would tend to slow down the cancelling as the cancellers would start to read the addresses.

Or it was found to be easier for left-handed people or right-handed people to cancel this way, so they could hold and steady the mail with one hand while the other was cancelling.

Or it was a personal preference. If I was cancelling mail all day, or a good portion of it, I think the normal reaction to such possibly tedious work would be to speed it up somehow.

=If you meant the ways the dates are, European dates and usually written Day / Month / Year rather than the North American wau of Month / Day / Year. This changes depending on which country or culture you are viewing the stamps of around the world.

Most times the cancelling device is made of two parts, the name and the date plug. The date plug (a separate piece of metal work) is sometimes inserted back into the cancelling device upside-down, depending on the device manufacture, if it allows such mistakes.So then you get cancels that have the names one way and the dates the other way.

= = = =
I do enjoy the history of cancels and where and why they were used but am not any sort of expert level fellow yet. Rod is more that than I.

Rod, thanks for the pricing guide also. I haven't got many of these yet.

Links
Belgium Railway Cancels Illustrated (in English also)
http://www.dickens-stamps.be/stamen...bespcanc.htm

HexJumper's links:
http://www.stampsonweb.nl/forum/vie...p?f=15&t=128

Puzz, a few friends on this forum, and myself have a
very dear friend in North America Mr. Tracy Barber,
who was at one stage collecting these en mass with the aim
of producing a catalogue, with the rail structure of Belgium.

As sometimes happens with collectors, they go
into hiding, (probably very busy) we have not
heard from him for a while. He is a very dedicated and
knowledgeable collector.

That would be (and is) the major undertaking, creating a catalogue.

I had had ideas of creating a web page or two. I had not wandered into the realm ofanything so expansive (probably).

Thanks for the name, will keep my ears open.

The first issue of the railway stamps hold quite a bit of value in the catalogue. These are horizontal rectangles, with values in all four corners, straight tablets along all four sides, and the badge-with-lion in the center. As a plus, they often have hex cancels because of the era. None are pictured above, but they show up in railway mixtures. My theory is that some collectors/dealers just groan and throw all the railways into the same pile.

The 50c stamp pictured above bearing the hex cancel is from the next issue. That series is generally low in catalogue value (but very attractive, to my eyes). Then, pretty much the same format is used, but Belgium is spelled two ways, and most have the center numerals in black. If you find one one of those and the engraver's name appears in the bottom margin, then that will have a bit of value. No engravers name = not much value.

The overprinted winged wheel with words in two vertical lines have a lot of value, and depending on where you run across it, you should start out thinking it might be a forgery.

Beyond that, there is no substitute for just looking each one up, as the rest of the examples up through 1940 are mostly low catalogue value, with a few outliers here and there.

The three stamps with dominicals are at the low end of the catalogue-value spectrum, too.

I didn't double-check any of the railways with post-1940 cancels, and I don't have a resource for evaluating any particular cancel in the eyes of a cancel collector (except that, like Puzzler, when I find a hex I buy it.)

I am collecting pictures of the older ones for now.

Scott catalogue #Q6




That's were they all go to! Aha!

That is a nice example of the first issue.

HI
What I meant is that on some stamps the Chemin de Fer is the upright and the Spoorwegen is upside down as is Belgique. Yet on other of the stamps they are all facing upright. Is this normal
Regards,
Horamakhet

Horamkhet,

I believe you scanned one of the horizontal stamps upside down, and some of the vertical stamps on their sides !

They all look fine to me, just not standing to attention.

Londonbus1....it's hard to stand on a train !

, that is what I see also.

Some are vertical stamps and some are horizontal.

The 3,00 brownish red horizontal one is upside down although the cancel is upright.

The first stamp, the 0,20 light green is a vertical stamp which makes the cancel actually sideways.

It is hard to see a thing when you are looking so hard at another.

I missed that the stamps were cropped short and cut off when I first looked at the exploded scans as I was looking for that hex cancel and wanted to see that, and then I was looking at the other cancels. I ignored he actual stamps.

I don't think I understand "railway stamp". Were the stamps bought at a railway station in Belgium instead of at a post office?