Interesting Cancels From Around The World: What Are They?

Puzzler, thanks for looking. The cancel seems to mean St. John's Gate BRIDGE, so the next step would be to establish if there's a bridge by that name in Quebec City. Using Google, I can't find anything to suggest that there is. Perhaps the 'BR' does stand for Brigade, which also came to mind as a possibility. However, the only 'Gate Brigade' I can identify (using Google, of course) is the Salvation Army's Prison Gate Brigade!

Abbreviations.com gives four pages of results (86 altogether) for 'BR.'
The only ones that look even remotely possible are 'Beach Road' and 'Barry Railway'!

I have 100's of 3 cent canadian issues that were used as revs on bank checks so my guess is "bank of Montreal St. John's Branch

Hmmm, that may be the answer. The logical explanation, therefore, is that there was a branch of the Bank of Montreal at St. John's Gate in Quebec City.

Re the NZ cancel, I've also been able to establish that F.M.B. stands for 'Foreign Mail Branch.' It's very hard to find other examples of this cancel online, however.

This cancel is known as "Monkey Face". There's no exact data to determine in which town it was used. Some people say it was used in towns near the railway to the Caribbean. In the late 1800's early 1900's it was very common that in countryside post offices' workers made these cork handstamps because of their excess of free time.

Nice to have a knowledgeable Costa Rican aboard, estamp,
I stared at monkey face for a while
before I saw the image.

Looks more like a Picasso face, or a sun god to me.

Nice interesting post.

yeah, it doesn't look like a monkey at all, but somebody called that way and now is the only way it's known.

I am biting my lip very hard,
not to take people to task on this one.
The image of the cancel is in positive,
a very difficult and risky thing to do with cork.

Given the fine workmanship and small lines,
I would almost bet your wallett this is anything but a cork cancel.
Probably a woodcut.

But since I know nothing about Costa rica stamps, I'll remain quiet :)

I'm glad I didn't take the bet. I asked a "coat of arms issue" specialist and he said that those cancels were made of rubber and were used in a banana plantation farm.

I think one of my latest findings fits this post perfectly:



I know it's a red "US Civil Censorship / MUNICH" machine cancellation on Czechoslavian stamp. But I'd like to know how common these are on non-german stamps?

For what I've scoured ebay, Delcampe and other online auctions during last week, these seem quite scarce (and low value) on non-german stamps. I think I've seen only seen 2-3 similar items (all on Austrian stamps). Since this cancel is part of US postal history, I would (like to) believe that collectors on US forum like SCF have most in-depth knowledge on topic.

PS. Some information (and misc findings) about this Czechoslovakian stamp series is available on my blog (shameless self-promotion, LOL).

I don't know if this cancel type is rare or not but it is the one and only in my small collection. I like it because it is tidy.