Crete Stamps Cancels Help, Please?

Can anyone ID the city for me of the number 65 rhomboid cancel on a stamp of Crete?
Also, is there a listing of the Crete numeral cancels anywhere on the net?
Thanks in advance.

Rural cancellation of the Cretan state, dotted cancellation (1900-1907):
number 65 = LIMHN SHTEIAS (Siteia port)

The list of dotted cancellations per post office from the Hellas-Karamitsos catalogue:





As per a note in the catalogue, "each of the numbers of the rural cancellations corresponded - initially at least- to the registration number of the rural postman and not to a specific rural itinerary".

Vasia, thank you! I also have quite a few dotted numeral cancels from Crete, and now I can go some way to identifying them. Very useful.

Thank you, Vasia!!!

Feenstra's handbook associates #65 with a route described as "Karido" which I assume is Karydi, a village a few miles south-east of Sitia.

Very useful, thanks to all

Nigel, Vasia, in your opinions which is the better reference: Feenstra or Hellas-Karamitsos?

Hi Tim,

I see both as essential references.

I've only seen the point that Vasia quotes in the Hellas catalogue and it would be interesting to know more about this.

However, given the wording, especially "initially at least", maybe the distinction between route and postman is not all that significant.

I suspect that typically the same postman worked the same route while employed and then the number would be reallocated to his successor if he left the service.

Here are Feenstra's introductory remarks on the rural postmarks:

"To serve the small villages and scattered hamlets, Cretan postmen, covered the same route two or three times a week, on foot, by bicycle or by mule.

They did not only deliver letters and so on, but also collected letters cancelled by their own numeral mark, sold stamps, handled money orders and even handed over court summonses to act as a witness in minor judicial affairs.

In a word they acted as travelling post offices.

At the end of their route they delivered the mail etc. to the post office they were connected to.

In the following list of dotted and posthorn marks the name is given of the main post office they were connected to and on the postal maps the situation of the routes is shown."

The table in the Hellas catalogue seems a little strange to me in that I don't see much point of having an Eparchia/District column, especially lying between the number and the post office. After all, the number is associated with a post office which lies within a district.

I wonder if in an earlier edition the District column gave the route identification and that this was later changed because of uncertainty on the route allocation?

Nigel,

Thanks for the detailed reply. The potential for confusion on postmark details between the two books gave rise to my question. I'll try and dig out both of them tomorrow and make my own mind up.

T

Hi Tim,

I'll think you'll find them both very useful if you have an interest in Crete and/or the wider Greek area.

There were two editions of Feenstra's Book:

1. Rienk M. Feenstra, Crete: Postal History - Stamps (Amsterdam, 1986) [blue soft cover]

2. Rienk M. Feenstra & Friends, Crete: Postal History - Postage & Revenue Stamps - Coins & Banknotes (Athens, 2001) [white hard cover]

Both were published by the Postzegelvereiniging Griekenland of the Netherlands an the second edition was under the collectio imprint and was much extended and updated.

Hellas is one of the leading standard Greek catalogues. It covers the whole Greek area and is published by A. Karamitsos.

It includes listings of the nineteenth century postmarks for Greece (the first six standard types) and postmarks from some other areas such as Crete and Thrace.

Its postmark listings were in volume II of my old catalogue.

Another book that you might find useful if you are interested in the foreign post office in the Greek area is:

Alain Nicolas & Alexandre Galinos, Foreign Post Offices and their cancellations in the Helladic Territories (Athens, 1996).

This is an excellent hardback listing of the offices and postmarks with clear illustrations, again under the collectio imprint

I have Volume A which is described as "to 1923".

There was a second volume planned to cover postmarks from the Ionian Islands, the Smyrna territries and the post-1923 Italian, Bulgarian and British postmarks in the area but I don't know if it was ever published.

The 1st edition of Feenstra, the Hellas catalogue and the Nicolas & Galinos book are in the RPSL library.

Thanks Nigel, I'll see what they have!