Railway Post Offices (R.p.o.) In Canada

Found three RPO/MC cancels in that lot of Globe newspaper reply cards. Unfortunately not all very clear. You think I got them correct? Maybe our experts can decipher them.


Walkerville & Ridgetown MC


This looks to be the same as the above


St. Thomas & Courtney RPO

This from bnatopics.com rpo study group:

...and I wonder if the Courtney one isn't a St. Thomas&Courtwright rpo.

Well cynical, aren't you clever. I just looked at the back of that card and it was sent from, you guessed it, the town of Courtright. Guess I should have turned it over.

Saw this postcard on ebay today and thought it had Christmas for rpo train buffs written all over it - the CPR station in Fort William, Ontario (now part of Thunder Bay).

This cover only has a few hours remaining on ebay. It is a McDonald House hotel cover from Chesley, Ontario, dated December 10, 1895. The 3c small Queen Victoria stamp (Canada Scott#41?) does not, however, display a Chesley Post Office cancel but what may be a Georgian Bay & Lake Erie rpo cancel.

In my youth the historic McDonald House was one of my pub tour stops on journeys through the Queen's Bush area. The highlight of such visits was an enormous Telford Fenton painting of McClures Mill at one end of a small intimate wood-paneled room off the Ladies & Escorts called the Bruce Room. On occasion Telford himself would be there tipping one or two. I believe the hotel is now closed but I often wonder what happened to the painting. Telford died in 2004.

This ebay cover expires shortly. I clipped it previously for nostalgic reasons as it is an hotel advert cover displaying the Seldon House in Owen Sound, Ontario. You might think it was a "watering" stop on one of my pub tours but you would be wrong. Back then, If I remember correctly, Owen Sound was "dry". I was doing a train-bus-hitch-hiking tour of Ontario and after spending some time in Port Elgin I thumbed a ride to Owen Sound and caught a bus for Barrie that departed from the Seldon House.

This morning I took a closer look at the image and believe the King George V Admiral stamps (Canada Scott#104) may display Toronto&Owen Sound rpo postmarks, albeit very poor ones.



Here is a Stamp Community Forum link to a discussion of this postmark and much better images.

https://goscf.com/t/20889

I rode on this train a few times and can still picture the horse-like snorting steam engine approaching the station. The link below takes you to "Old Time Trains" where this CPR train route is discussed.

http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrai...ANCHPSGR.htm

Cynical, those are great covers.

The thing about covers like those is, would I place them in my advertising covers album, or, my RPO album?? I guess I would have to check the RF of the RPO and determine which of the two, the advert, or the cancel, is the most important.

Oh the trials and tribulations of a philatelist

Chimo

Bujutsu

Ryan - Railrodder is one of the funniest short films ever made. I probably have seen it 20 times in my life.

I just got this cover from a lot, and I found what I believe is a rare TPO, according to Ludlow, a rarity factor of 500.

I' welcome other conclusions, but my initial take is that on the back is Ludlow N16b or NSSC Ry22a, with a cancel type of 4J : "COASTAL WEST T.P.O. NEWF'D"

On the front it is registered from Belloram to St Johns with Newfoundland #66.

beautiful stamp too. Do you have a zoom in on the stamp please?
I'm not up on TPOs or RPOs so much though.

Puzzler:
I will try and zoom the stamp and post it on the weekend.
I've just started exploring the whole TPO/RPO cancels on my covers and find them more often than I thought for the old Newfoundland covers, at least.
Like the one above--I bought it on ebay for the stamp and only saw the front image...when I got it in the mail :
Voila!
I think the dates suggest it was mailed by land on Nov 11, then on the train Nov 13, then arrived in St Johns on the 16th

All for 6 cents?

...and here is what appears to be a London&Wiarton rpo dated 1933 on a 3 cent King George V Medallion (Canada Sc#197).

This cover was sent from Tiverton, Ontario, in Bruce County to Hamilton and, in so doing, collected a nest of hammer marks on its backside to denote the route that it took. Note the Palmerston&Kincardine rpo's and a Guelph&Owen Sound rpo.

Great covers Tommy and Cynical. What I like about them is that the strikes are very clear. One thing about the old covers is that you can see all the travelled routes on them, not like today.

Chimo

Bujutsu