Catalogue Of Pictorial Postmarks

If such a thing even exists, could anyone point me towards it, especially a U.S. comprehensive one?

There is nothing that is anywhere close to comprehensive for the US.

As a start:
http://www.stampsmarter.com/feature...rn_Home.html

There is also an out-of-print book Start of USPD/USPS pictorial handcancels by the Pictorial Eleven, covering the 1940s to early 1980s. That is a defunct collector group that specialized in US pictorial cancels. The books might be a collection of the xeroxed pages of newly found cancels sent to members monthly.

New ones are announced in the USPS Postal Bulletin and there is an archive that goes back to 2001, but even that is not comprehensive for the time period.

My estimate is that there are over 50,000 US pictorials and fancy cancels including machine flags and machine cancels.* That number is for different ones by design and city/town. There are further different colors, different dates including reuse every year, and minor varieties.

Countries that issue/have issued a lot of pictorials aside from FDC cancels include Germany, Great Britain and Japan. There may be book references for those. As new ones from any country come out all the time, finding ones for (say) a specific topic is pretty hit-or-miss. You have to enjoy the thrill of the hunt through online stores and dollar boxes.

Is there something specific you are looking for?

*EDIT: My guess for fancy and pictorials from about the 1890s to date.

Hi hy - (sorry, couldn't resist )
Its actually not for me. I write a monthly column for the American Topical Association's journal, Topical Time, on the subject, so a member contacted me to ask. I doubted it, as you said, due to the staggering number, but offered to ask around.

Good idea on the StampSmarter site (thank you!)...I had forgotten about it.

Cheers.

Australia has had one for years............

Pictorial Postmarks = aka PICTORMARKS

In the UK there are a series of catalogues about slogan postmarks. Slogan postmarks of the United Kingdom:1917-69. Slogan postmarks of the eighties. ISBN 0 904548 05 8. Slogan postmarks of the nineties part1: The first five years 1990-1994 ISBN 0904548 06 6. Slogan postmarks of the nineties part2:The latter five years 1995-1999 ISBN 0 904548 07 4. For all four books the Authors are Parsons, Peachey, & Pearson. There is also a book for the 1970s but this is a bit more scarce. All these books can be found used at quite low prices on the internet.
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There is another group, the International Machine Cancel Society. I'd suggest contacting them.

http://www.machinecancel.org/

As far as I know, there's a Spanish special postmark catalog compiled by the Spanish Federation of Philately some years ago (not very good),another of the Basque Country special postmarks and myself have compiled and keep updated a catalog of the special postmarks used in Barcelona (my hometown) since 1888.
There are special postmarks catalogs all around Europe, made by philatelic societies. So, most have a country/local range.

Even a small US state such as Vermont has had many pictorial cancels for the last few decades. Check out http://www.vermontps.org (half way down the page) to see some of the Vermont pictorials. The upcoming issue of the Vermont Philatelist will have information about 3 pictorials already used in Vermont in 2019.

Not all pictorials are listed in the USPS Postal Bulletin. We just found a 2013 pictorial from Jamaica, Vermont that wasn't listed and about 10 years ago a series of pictorials was used at 4 or 5 small Vermont post offices that weren't list in the Postal Bulletin.

Glenn Estus, President, Vermont Philatelic Society
editor, The Vermont Philatelist.