Belgian Railway Stamps

Thanks John for your post.




It might not be as cut and dried as whether or not there was a railway station at all. In the UK the railway companied had separate offices for the receipt of parcels and other goods that were not attached to stations, sometimes even where the nearest station was reasonably close.

In this country the transport of goods was the big earner and the driver for the development of the railways generally, not the transport of passengers. Was it the same in Belgium? If so it makes sense therefore that the companies would want to make it as easy as possible for people to get their packages to a convenient point for despatch, and post offices here were much more widespread and accessible - especially in big towns and cities.

As Tony said earlier, if you used a post office to despatch your parcel and they used ordinary stamps and an ordinary CDS, once the stamps were off the docket we as collectors have no way of knowing what the transaction was.

It's far less than 100 years since this was a common way of moving goods around but as with so many everyday things it was so commonplace that nobody really recorded it , and no one seems to remember what the details of the process were.

Typical Waybill
Source : Auction Belgian Philatelic Circle

Seek Information.


Belgian Railway Bisects. (from a collection of 10)
Only seen OSTENDE or LIEGE 1939 "Service Militaire"

What I was able to find:

in 1938 new railway stamps were issued. In the same year/period Belgium started Military Mobilisation.

Packages sent to Military personel were only 3 franks.

Problem was the new series did not have a 3 frank stamp, and the older railway stamps were no longer valid.

Solution: chop the 6 franks examples in half.

later in September 1939 a new stamp with 3 frank overprint came into use.

First picture: remark in the official Belgium catalogue confirming the existance of semis stamps

Picture 2: the catalogue part of the septemeber 1939 issue.

Both in dutch, but in generall I explained what happened in the text above.

Catalogue used is older, so catalogue prices seen on the picture are not current.

Fabulous Johan.
Thank you for your time, on my behalf.

Tricky one.
I am thinking perhaps TERNEAU or similar, but Wiki does not recognise this city / town.
Needs more work.

Falling Rain has nothing with TERNEU???
Thought bubble: Anglicised form of TURNHOUT perhaps ?

That 3rd letter, is an enigma, an R, or something else?

Crazy, wild suggestion: Error in the production, R and N transposed.
TENREUKEN
Not aware of production techniques, if engraved no, if movable typeface, well then ?

No, nothing easy like that in fallingrain.com. TERNEDERHOF and TERNEDER HOEVE are the closest I can find. Both are the same place (Lat and Long same), with the former being Germanic, and the latter being Dutch. Both translate to homestead, home or home place.

Should have mentioned it, but that R is almost certainly an R, based on good light and a 10x loupe.

Could it be Terneuzen? On the border, albeit the Dutch side.

Geoff, I like it !
The date would add weight to the suggestion, but being a port railhead, I would have thought the cancel to be more numerous. Never seen this one before.

I was thinking the same, being from Holland. But the small part of the letter after "Terneu" does not look like a "z". Besides, a Belgian cancel would not be used in Holland

Peter

I had trouble with that, then decided the tiny white spot was a rub or damage to the perf tooth. I decided it could well be the elbow of a thickish "Z"

If you look on Delcampe you will find a number of cancellations for Terneuzen and it is listed in Jones Railway Cancellations

Thank you very much, Deltic.