Cover Canceled Two Days Before The Date Of Issue???

I have bought a cover that is said to be a cover that was cancelled two days before the date of issue of the stamp.
Cover has 4 6 09 cancel and the stamp was issued on 6 6 09.

IS it real? How would it have happened? Is this sort of thing common??

The auction description reads like this.... in Italian...

"Moto italiane Gilera lettera del 04/06/2009 in data anticipata (emesso 06/06/2009).Oggetto postale molto bello, ottimamente conservato ed in perfetta tariffa di €. 0,60. Annullo manuale del CMP di Firenze (particolare) e barrette di invio."

translated badly reads....

"Italian motorcycle Gilera 6/4/2009 letter in early date (6/6/2009 issued).Post object very nice, well-preserved and perfectly € fee. 0.60. CMP manual Cancellation of Florence (detail) and fingers."

I don't know what a CMP manual cancellation means??

Regards
Gavin

Took bit of googling in Italian but I found some info on CMP.
"Centro di Meccanizzazione Postale"

Translated to English...

"A Postal Mechanization Centre, often abbreviated CMP, is a place where large quantities of correspondence sorted by Poste italiane."

To my mind that makes it more likely to be a genuine postally used cover and not something faked, or created by a postal worker at a small post office.

I found some interesting reading to be had on the net about "first use covers"

Regards
Gavin

Interestingly, the postmark on the stamp itself appears to read *4 *5 09. But maybe it looks like a "5" because of underinking?

Close up of cancels....

Thinking about it... you bring up an interesting point about underinking of the cancel... if I was to fake a cover then I would make sure that the cancel was nice and clear... I think this also points at it being a real cover.

By "real cover" I mean something that happened by mistake and not on purpose.

The cover is on it's way from Italy at the moment and when it arrives I will do a close examination of it and maybe a better close scan.

I think it's a lovely addition to my collection and adds something a but different. I like odd things like that. :)

Regards
Gavin

There are two ways of covers getting postmarked before the Official first day of issue. Someone may make a mistake in setting the date OR a local PO may mistakenly release the stamps early.

"There are two ways of covers getting postmarked before the Official first day of issue. Someone may make a mistake in setting the date OR a local PO may mistakenly release the stamps early."

How often does this happen? I have not seen any yet on first day covers. I wonder how often it happens in the US?

Is it possible that the 4/6/09 on the cover (which in European use is 4th June 2009) is being compared with a 6/6/09 North American source for the issue date (June 6, 2009)?

I think Conker is onto something there.

I think Gavin converted the European form of dd/mm/yyyy to mm/dd/yyyy when he added the translation. I think the translation still holds to the two-days-early theory. Otherwise, we'd be talking two months early...

Or have I totally confused myself?

That was just the translator doing that, I hadn't noticed it changed it around.

It's definitely just two days early. :)
Regards
Gavin

Darkoath - in the US, almost every issue in the last number of years have covers that are dated before the official date of issue (usually due to some PO selling them before they are supposed to)

I just realised that I have another cover here with an early postmark.
I once had a small collection of Pigeon Post items, and I still have the remains here. Around 1997 the New Zealand PO issued a set of triangle Pigeon post stamps. They also issued two special event sheets with those stamps on them that were issued on the dates of the events..... will, someone at the PO dated a bunch of FDC for the sheet with the earlier date of the stamp issue. And I have one here somewhere... must dig it out and sell it to put the money into the core collection of Italian motorcycle stamp items!
regards
Gavin

Better scans of the cancels...