Guadeloupe: Month Name In Cancel Upside Down

I acquired this stamp, Guadeloupe Yvert no. 32 - 1892 Shipping&Trade 15 c blue. Actually it's a double for me, I was about to put in my 'for sale' album, then I noted the actual content of the cancel.



Judging from the partly visible location '..t-bourg' I determined this must be 'petit-bourg'. The name on top I assume 'Guadeloupe'.

But the date seems odd to me. When reading the cancel with 'Petit-bourg' at the bottom, the date would read '17 RVEF 99' (with letters 'RVEF' upside down)

When flipping the image the month becomes clear: FEVR ... so 17 february 1899.



Has anybody seen this before? Details appreciated ...


Wilfred

The cancel device allowed changes to the date by inserting slugs to build up the correct date. Occasionally one is inserted upside down, and you get a 'cancel with inverted slug' (or some permutation of those words).

They are interesting, and I keep them, but they are not rare. Uncommon, maybe. Search here for inverted slug and you'll get two pages of results.

I could not say it better than CJD just did.


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I was unaware we were up to two pages already.

Thanks, that makes it more clear. Never would have searched for 'slug'

A nice 'curiosity' to add to my collection.

Slug is a generic term in english for "piece or bit of metal". As the various aspects of the date and time in a cancel dial were little bits of metal with numbers and month names on them, we call them slugs.