Need Help With Some Cancels!

Hello everyone,

Need some help identifying some cancels and also not sure if maybe two are precancels instead. any ideas on them? Thamks again.

I don't think you have any precancels there.

Here are my guesses:

1. Bahamas - A revenue cancel
2. Thurn & Taxis - normal postal cancel...I can look up the post office later if nobody beats me to it.
3. Bavaria - normal postal cancel...again, the post office can be identified by the number. (Do you want to confirm your guess of the number in the center?)
4. Cape of Good Hope - seems like a normal postal cancel...there are lots of post offices that start with a 'B' and have longer names, so I'd have to defer to a specialist to i.d. yours.
5. Prussia - normal postal cancel...number?
6. Prussia - normal postal cancel...I'd have to check a list of post offices before guessing at a town
7. Netherlands Indies - this one I don't recognize. Perhaps a ship cancel for the Tamba Maru? This is a weak guess, though.
8. Belgium - pretty sure this is a normal Brussels cancel

Bahamas - just a normal handwritten revenue cancel.

Thurn & Taxis - vierringstempel (4 ring cancel) #220 is Frankfurt.

Cape of Good Hope - here's a list of towns beginning with E - take your choice:
East London 29 1111 33s00 27e55
East London West Bank 370
Eastpoort 32s40 25e53
Ebenezer 1872 31s04 30e09
Eerste River 199 34s00 18e43
Eerste River Station 189
Elands Drift 283
Elands Laagte
Elands Vlei 519 32s19 19e33
Elandspost (Seymour) 1858
Elim 705 34s35 19e45
Elliotdale 31s55 28e38
Embokotwa 550 1129
Emfundisweni 885
Emgwali, Tembuland 130
Endersdale
Engcobo 280 31s37 28e00
Entlambe 225
Etembeni 758

I'm afraid the rest are going to remain a mystery, at least to me.

I was seeing a 'B' but it sure could be an 'E' as well.

I thought I saw 220 on #2 and 128 on #3 but # 5 is completely illegible to me. I was told that the lower the number is the earlier the stamp and could effect the value? Is it me or does the Bayer 3K stamp seem like an error of some sort. It looks to me like two sheets of print paper overlapped right down the middle and they printed the stamp right over the top of it. Maybe its my eyes playing tricks on me. Any thoughts on it? Thanks everyone for your help.

#128 in Bavaria is Hessenthal. At the initial adoption of the cancels, they were assigned alphabetically, from #1-Abensberg to #402-Zwiesel. As new offices were added, they were tacked on with higher numbers.

So, generally speaking, there is no correlation between lower cancel numbers and earlier usages.

The line you see on Bayern (Bavaria in German) is a thread embedded in the paper, which all issues had for several years as a deterrent to counterfeiting (I guess). In any case, it's perfectly normal.

As a quick read of the Michel Spezial (catalog) will confirm, it's the very highest numbers that tend to be the rarest; this has nothing to do with the stamp, except that a rare stamp (such as a high value) is many times "more rare" with a rare cancel.

Still on Bavaria. The last 5 numbers of the original issues (i.e., the highest 5 numbers), ##599-603, were added from January to October, 1856, near the end of the first distribution of these cancels. (This is from an old source, so newer scholarship might have updated this information.)

I would imagine that the shorter time of usage, and the likelihood that a town with a new office might be smaller, would combine for some spectacularly rare examples. But I'm no expert on these guys.

[edit: More information is added below to expand on the numbering and second series of numbers.]

Certainly those numbers are worth a good deal more than, say, 1 thru 200, but the highest numbers in 1997 Michel run up to 920. Most of 905 to 920 add from DM 500 to DM3000 to the value of the stamp. Surprisingly, 35 is also in this expensive group; don't know what town it is, Michel just gives numbers for Bavaria.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great info.

The original numbers 1 through 603 are referred to as the first distribution of these cancels.

Circa December, 1856, the numbers were reassigned, alphabetically, to account for all the new additions that had been made over the years. This reassignment is referred to as the second distribution.

I would appreciate confirmation on this, but I think that all numbers from 607, up, are open millwheels rather than the closed millwheel showed above. The open millwheels are two dashed concentric rings around the central number and ring, instead of the 'spikes' shown here.

If we can keep massaging this until the information is right, it would be a nice resource.

By the way, 35 appears to be Bruchmühlbach. Here is a scan of 35 (not my stamp):



[edit: Here is an example of the open millwheel, from Germany's Wikipedia:

So then this would be a first distribution cancel based on the design and not the number which to me looks like 128. Unless I missed something in your description which is very possible. Interesting and useful info. Thanks.

Good point, blade...this stamp wasn't issued until 1867, which means the second-distribution numbering was in effect, which means 128 was assigned to Fichtelberg.

Again, corrections welcomed...

Great info. Will def. note for future reference. Knowledge is power as they say.