Let's See Your Railway Post Office Rpo Items

1911 Des Moines & Sioux City RPO cancel on postcard:

Well, quite a bit has changed since my first few posts in this thread, 4 1/2 years ago, then I had four RPOs in my Redwood Empire Two county postmark collection. And I can answer my own question.

https://goscf.com/t/14858&whichpage=4#379246

The train line reached Willits in 1902, my earliest Willits & San Fran is Oct 27 1903. I also have a Ukiah & San Fran struck on Jun 15 1903. Ukiah was the next station south of Willits, 22 miles.

Now there are 52 cards and covers all with North West Pacific RPO postmarks, of which most have been posted.
I snagged these four cards during Jim Forte's clearance sale. Three of them are all addressed to the same person, and posted while aboard the train. The author kindly noted the town nearest when he mailed the card, about 15 miles apart.
I guess Jim must have been quite busy when he identified these postmarks using the RPO catalog numbers. Here are the Wilits & San Fran RPO catalog listings.


985-U-1 is 30 mm, 985-U-2 and 985-U-3 are 29mm.

These two cards were identified as NWP 985-U-1.








The third card was identified as NWP 985-U-2.




This is the fourth card posted 13 months later, it was identified as NWP-U-3. Personally, they all look the same to me

The last RPO example is definitely different. Note the distances from RPO to the W and the N.

The RPO catalog is a great effort, but one of my frustrations with the RPO catalogs is the use of tracings rather than scans (and the lack of killers). I have been told it would take too much effort to track down covers/cards and make images, thus any well-intentioned errors made by previous collectors to fill-in faint letters, etc., and accidentally create new varieties will be a long time before they are eliminated.

I doubt there are really 5 different handstamps in such a short time period. I suspect an inaccurate tracing or two has worked its way into the listings over time. For my own limited RPO collecting of transfer clerk markings, I have sought examples from each year to show the progressive damage to each device and determine the approximate date of device replacement. For example, the 1903 cancel above has a complete rim, and the three 1904 examples have a break over the LL of WILLETS, yet the tracing (like all tracings!) show a full circle for the rim. Not accurate for the rim condition for a tracing dated 1906. Collecting year-by-year helps ID MPOS listings which should be eliminated/combined. Bottom line, the MPOS catalog is a great effort, but has some pitfalls.

ASHEVILLE & CHARLES R.P.O.

This is a Valentine card from western N.C. to Lockhart, S.C. in the upstate area.

Presently, there is a slightly different Asheville & Charles R.P.O. postcard being offered on ebay. It is train #14 from 1907.

August 1968 R.P.O. La Tour de Querol (France) to Barcelona

From my small Iowa RPO collection, an October 26, 1908 Tama & Hawarden cancel, train number illegible. This RPO was on a Chicago and Northwestern train.

Don

Three more strikes of the Willits & San Fran with a gap in the rim above LL, one is from 1905, two from 1907. The gap on all six strikes are 3.5mm.
Also a Willits, & San Fran from 1904. So there may have been five different handstamps used between 1903 and Oct. 23, 1914 when the NWP connected to Eureka. Willits was connected in 1902.
This postmark is a odd, having no stop after Fran, but looks like the train was moving when the cover was canceled.

Something that may be useful in determining whether two steel postmark are alike or different is to draw lines on copies.
1. The difference in the gap at "A"
2. Drawing lines directly across the cancel and seeing the angle at which letters align, in 1904 the vertical lines of the I and N are perfectly aligned, in 1905 these same lines angle toward the center. Thus different devices.
3. The distance and angle of the period at the end of RPO and the final town name (not illustrated here). Punctuation is not always visible, so look for confirming features if the strike is not strong.
4. The angle between, the directions and lengths of the outward strokes of the ampersand, quite different on these two marks.

I bought this card for its Thanksgiving illustration on the reverse, but would like to know where this RPO ended. Is the Oxford in the cancel Oxford, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, or Iowa?

Thanks

Don

Is this helpful?

Yes, very, thank you.

Don

I ran across this Royal Train RPO this while sorting through a pile of covers tonight. Glenn Estes has provided a nice explanation of the Royal Train RPO on his website, here. http://www.glennestus.com/royalvisit/rvusaa.html

From his website he describes, "In 1939 the King and Queen of English visited North America from May 17 through June 17. During that time they traveled to Canada, the United States and Newfoundland, which was then not yet part of Canada.

The main part of the royal couple's itinerary was through out Canada, but, for a few days, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the United States. A special post office was opened on the Royal Train.

There were also special machine and hand cancels used on mail sent from the Royal Train RPO."

There are no additional markings on the reverse.

Also in yesterdays mail was this Railway Mail Service stationery, apparently privately used, but it does have a RPO postmark. There is nothing on the reverse.

From my Iowa RPO collection, a 1951 Chicago, Marion & Omaha cancel. The cover probably was mailed at the depot drop box in Perry, Iowa, one of the train's stops. This RPO ran on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad and was discontinued in 1968.

DonSellos

Nice strike of the New York & Canal Zone RPO. This RPO was on a ship operated by the Panama Railroad Steamship Co.