Postmark Collections - How Do You Organize Your Postmarks?

I don't... maybe I should??? ;-)

This might be a new task for me, as I do indeed have some machine cancels removed from envelopes. Though this thread seems to be related to singles.

I'm attaching a pic of one the pages in my Gazetteer Collection of city/town/etc. postmarks. I made the template file myself so long ago that I no longer remember how to do it. There are now thousands of these pages in the 40 albums that hold my collection. The stamps are mounted on the basis of which country the place is now located, including those other stamp-issuing states or entities in which those places might have been.
When a new page is needed I start by printing a blank-squares template. As I mount the stamps, I hand-write in the names of the places. When all 19 spaces have stamps for them, I print a new blank page, typing in the names of the places and then remount the stamps on the new page. Sometimes it takes years to fill a new page.
Why do I put a star on some of the spaces? Because I've been there!

@EdziuMM - That's a beautiful and brilliant presentation of your postmarks. Clever idea with the stars!

The Victoria - Gozo postmark is a true showpiece. Furthermore it's interesting as Gozo is just a tiny little island belonging to Malta.

Cool that you're also into numeral pm's. If you like to start on the French, you will find complete listings of PC and GC numerals on this website:
http://marcophilie.org/x/x-los-i.html

For now I've only made database for a few countries, first of all for countries where it's possible to find postmarks from places belonging to separate countries today, like Austria, Turkey, India etc. It will be a pleasure to share if interested.

Bump. I guess I could share how my Luxembourg CDS project turned out. I like the Grande Vario pages a lot - but the downside is they are a bit too large for a normal scanner bed , so the lower part of the pages are missing.









The place name 'tags' are generated automatically from my 'Postmark database' (presented in the beginning of this thread).

@barbu - the duplicated postmarks have been reserved for trading with you

Beautiful!

The only country that I collect postmarks from is Ireland and thanks to mechanisation this is now largely futile.
I employ three methods.
1....stamps on paper. These are in a Selby Medium Stamp Album. I have about 1,000 and they are in 32 different sections representing counties. Major counties like County Cork and County Donegal take up about six pages, while others like County Armagh and County Carlow have maybe only two pages.
2...slogan postmarks are on envelopes and I am specifically interested in the early years 1922-1960. I integrate these in with my stamps and I think three or four slogans showing early commemoratives adds to the optics. I also got very lucky when I bought a 1934 commemorative on an envelope and it turned out to be a First Day issue.
3....postmarks from 1900-1922 which are of course pre-independence ....GB stamps "used in Ireland" and the interesting thing is that these are English language postmarks on postcards....I only have about 120. I keep them in an album.

@EdziuMM - Thank you

@FitzjamesHorse - Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you have quite an impressive collection of Irish postmarks Always good to hear others are also collecting postmarks. I am also collecting Irish 'forerunners' (Irish postmarks on GB stamps) - I find that kind of collecting very interesting.

I guess many of us would love to see images of some of your classic postcards with Irish postmarks on GB stamps

Ireland.

Very nice Rod

I dont seem to have the facility here to upload pics. Is my total number of posts ...39....too low to upload a pic.
Anyway, five minutes ago, I posted a page of County Cork postmarks on my Blog. A link to my Blog is shown in my profile. If anyone has any interest in seeing postmarks from a specific county, I will be happy to post it on my Blog.
Tomorrow, I will select some postcards with "English" postmarks and post them on my Blog.

No, just click "upload image" when you make your post. You may need to spend a little time re-sizing a scan to meet the size limits.

FitzJamesHorse's pages make me green with envy, tho there's an interesting difference in what we do.
His pages present all the stamps right-side-up. Absolutely fine & visually pleasing.
I did that at first with my Gazetteer Collection of city/town/place postmarks. Then I decided that, hey, the place name is the feature here. So now I now mount the stamps so that the place name in the postmark reads as upright & straightforward as possible. That means that a lot of stamps are mounted sideways or upside-down. Not as visually pleasing, but making for easier reading. To accommodate this my stamps are mounted in standard squares that are large enough to contain most commem-size stamps.
No criticism of his method intended! His pages are more visually pleasing.

I also considered this aspect - whether to present the stamps right side up or with the postmark right side up - and I also agree that it is the postmark that is the feature, not the stamp design. Earlier I arranged them with the postmark up, as you say EdziuMM - "so that the place name in the postmark reads as upright & straightforward as possible".
However, after I started to add tags with the name of the postmark clearly identified, I reverted to having the stamp right side up. I think the presentation gets a little more pleasing to look at this way - and then the place-names are easy to read anyway. So, the best of two worlds...


FitzjamesHorse - I visited your blog - WOW - lot of impressive work - and beautiful stuff. Well presented. Envy...

Thank you both for the comments above. I must admit that I never really considered any other arrangement, probably because collecting postmarks is very secondary to me. All a bit academic now as mechanisation has meant that there are only a few mail sorting offices in the Republic of Ireland. In fairness, in a lot of cases, I often get "next day delivery" of mail posted in Dublin to "Northern Ireland".
As an aside, I am looking forward to my 65th birthday next month as it means that from 1st June, I will have free public transport...train, coach and bus ...all over Ireland. It means I can be in Dublin at 10am, and at most destinations outside Dublin for lunch. I will be on more trains than Hank Williams. It is an ideal "Farewell Tour" and I intend to complete it by the time I hit 70.

It will add a lot of modern postcards to my collection. But I also intend to photograph post offices. Some months ago, I unwittingly caused concern at a small post office in South Dublin when a postmaster came out to ask what I was doing. He was worried that I was arranging a robbery but was easily convinced that I am a harmless nerd. In fairness to him, he was right to be concerned. Now I always tell post office staff what I am doing.

Ha ha ha, excellent story! Enjoy your free rides.