United States Cancellations On New South Wales Stamps

Hi all,

The following two stamps were in a lot I recently won.

Could anyone provide any information and perhaps an image of the full cancellations please? The first one is San Francisco and the second one I have seen on low face value Columbians if I remember correctly.





Thanks folks

The first is a standard double oval cancel. I don't have a San Francisco one at hand but this will give you the style:


So this was used as a paquebot/ship mail cancel.

The second is a lonzenge-shaped killer of a duplex cancel. This duplex cancel style is known inside of the US and outside including Honolulu, Hawaii (unsure if they used a "2" killer) and Mexico. This would also have been used for paquebot/ship mail here, among other things.

Very nice!

The top one is a mute San Francisco oval cancel. ("Mute" because it is undated.) You see them often on registered letters, parcels, and sometimes on mail that was received uncancelled. That oval type, or nearly identical ones, was in use from the late 19th century into contemporary times.

The bottom cancel is called a "duplex" cancel (or killer), or a "numeral duplex" cancel. I always thought they looked kind of like wristwatches, so they're "wristwatch" cancels to me. There are a few different types, somebody more familiar with these might tell you which one. The number identified the specific canceller used at the Post Office; I don't think you can tell which particular city it comes from.

Others were replying as I typed, but I will leave this as I wrote it:

The San Francisco double oval would be used on letters/parcels where an undated cancel was needed. Issued to thousands of US post offices. Registered mail and parcel post would be common uses. Here is a typical example from Syracuse, NY to more clearly show the general format. Typical to about 1910 and after.



Your second stamp has a steel duplex handstamp similar in construction to this one from Crawfordsville, Indiana. These were also issued to thousands of US post offices with the number typically being a device number, thus the low numbers being extremely common. Some also have letters, station designations, short text, etc. Typical to about 1910 and after.



Here is a collection of different killer numbers. Literally impossible to determine the towns of use. This page was something to do with a large pile of otherwise worthless used stamps.



Add: Here is a San Francisco double oval mute cancel on a heavy-weight 3rd class mailing c1940s, although with CALIF at the bottom. These would have been available to every city station over many decades.

Many thanks hy-brasil, codehappy and John Becker

This great info will add some colour to my notes when I write up this part of my collection.

One can find covers with stamps not canceled upon dispatch canceled by the receiving country.

Very true PostalHysteria! Please see my thread on France cancellations on NSW stamps