Two Cancelations On Mr6 Cover

Here's a WWI Censored cover sent from the battlefield somewhere in France and I have a couple of questions on this one.
I believe this is a coil stamp but without the perfs on the sides does it matter if these were removed.
I see there are two Toronto cancels and they were done on different days with different cancels. Is there some reason for this to be cancelled this way?

Cheers, Bill

My guess is that a clerk noted that the first cancel failed to cancel the stamp and ran it through the machine again on the following day. As for the stamp, it may have been applied by an affixing machine that trimmed the perfs.

It looks as if the stamp was placed on the envelope after the army post office postmark and the censir's mark were applied. Was this the standard procedure at APOs? Where would the stamp have been added? If mail from APOs was sent back to Canada in bulk, it would certainly make sense to use a machine to add the stamps.

There was free postage for soldiers if mailed in a military post office or services office.
The postage was added in Canada for accounting purposes.
I thought the 2 and 3 on the cancel represented stations and perhaps it was at two different locations both in Toronto.

Cheers, Bill

Under the stamp you have first the censor cancel and then the letter go to army post office where was cancel for purpose to be send in Canada. In Toronto the first cancel from 12 PM meaning the batch time was received from Army post office. Then after the letter go to the office where an in city mail stamp will be added, and then the letter will take the normal delivery way. Cancel of the post office then delivery,

This kind of procedure still be in place, minor changes.

In the case of your letter was happens that the delivery service at the address to be services by the same post office plant,

2 and 3 are machine numbers, both located at the same place - the Main PO.

I will explain:

In the photo above you have the both Toronto cancels. In red encircle they are the points to look for.

First: the both cancels are same except the dash under the date. This in postal terms mean same tries plant. If was another postal tries letter plant will have his own number or letters, in some cases different cancels. The dash represent the front post office plant, Without it is the main receiving.

Second: No. 3 on the 12 PM cancel in general meaning receiving, 2 is delivery and 1 is expedition. This is in general, not a cement sit. Why? because this number varies by periods, normal was for purpose of the letter by departments, then some periods changes to show at internal which shift done the selection. In our case will fit with the first version - departments.

Third: look at red encirclement after Toronto, Same, Like today. Same post office, same matrices or plate (how you wont to name), with some very minor adds.

That's is.

I was high officer at Canada Post, and I have'it the opportunity to read somethings which we can't touch from outside from security reasons.

Silvio

Sorry the image:

I will respectfully disagree, having collected machine cancel for nearly 40 years. Large post office have multiple machines due to the mail volume and need methods of differentiating them for purposes such as inking and errant slug information. The numbers in the killer are the way to do this. The two dials are also different because they were cast individually - and inserted into different machines.

Agree with two different machine. The dial is same, difference in ink have many reasons. like the thickness of papers under, or the rubber roll under, quantity of ink, the axes of the inserting the letter, do not forgot that in that times was manual work and not robotic like today's.

I just tell the way how was the procedures, not more.

For me on this cover what have more question sign it is the signature on the left side? why? Was not recommended or signature delivery?

I write down your name and in the short time, will make me pleasure to send you some cancels. I look at the cancels but I do not collect them, only very few's one.

The dials are different. Note the angle of the vertical strokes of the T's compared to the red line. The dies are hand-set for casting in steel, note also the slightly different position of the comma. As different as fingerprints.


The writing on the left side is typical docketing applied by the recipient to note the sender's ID.

OK, I do not sad was only one machine, just different meaning of the cancellation. Any time the army letters are considered priority, so in Toronto plant they received and delivers. two different cancels. Same machine? 100% not because different departments and different locations inside. The different in dial must be from the adjustment and also from when they was change( cause of the intensive work), but sure was the same matrix who provide the dials at needs. They have mechanical department who give this service.It is like different plates in stamps.

How was the normal route for this address on the letter look at the topic I attached here.(Same name same address somewhere north of Belleville)

https://goscf.com/t/70979

All of the canceling machines were typically in the same room post offices needing more than one machine.
The dials were supplied by the machine maker, in this case International Postal Supply Co.
Changing to date/time slugs in the dials is a simple task for the machine operator.

Actually, the part I do not understand is the application of the stamp. How were WWI Canadian soldier letters from overseas typically handled? (In the U.S. a standard WWI letter came home entirely free.) If the one cover illustrated here is standard, then did the Canadian recipient pay the charges somehow?

No, the letter traveled free of postage and nothing waa collected from the addreszsee. The cover shown is typical of overseas mail from the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I. The stamp was applied in Canada as an accounting tool. I've always suspected that it was a way for the Canada Post Office to make the Ministry of Defence cover the domestic postage from their budget.

Jarnick, Thanks for the explanation. To take it further, I see about 2/3 of the WWI Canadian military covers on ebay with an added stamp and 1/3 appear to have gone through free. What is the difference? When did the accounting practice stop/start. Were certain types of military mail exempt?

Back to the original cover ... From examples on ebay, I do not see any others with double cancels to indicate receiving types of use. The cover looks in every way like a typical example of a letter not quite aligned with the stack and becoming an accidental "skip", caught during later processing and sent back through the machines - although not very speedily! If the PO were trying to mark mail as received and again when re-dispatched, the first cancel would likely have been parallel to some side as feeding a stack of different sized envelopes at an angle is difficult to manage at best.

The leaders of our forces in WWI new early on that morale was boasted considerable within the ranks if there was a reliable flow on mail.
The people who censored the out going mail were regimental people that they fought and trained with, they were well known by many.
The soldiers disliked the thoughts of someone reading the personal letters they were sending home to their loved ones.
With this in mind the military introduced a honour envelope, now a soldier would be able to sign the envelope declaring the content was nothing but private and family matters.
Letters in the honour envelope would not need a field censor stamp but instead travel to the main base and there they would be subject to being censored.
The procedure in mailing from the front back home was to hand the letter to the low ranking officer assigned to censoring the content. Only after he read it would he stamp it with a field censor stamp and sign it.
It was only after censoring that it was handed over to the Field Post office and stamped as such, from the field post office it was sent back to the main base.
Now at the main base it could be subject to another censor or if it was in an honour envelope this is where it could be censored.
Below are four examples
1. Passed field censor and signed on left side, stamp added and canceled in Toronto.
2. Passed field censor and signed on left side also was censored at main base, stamp added and canceled in Toronto.
3. This is the Honour envelope so there's no field censor stamp or signature however it was censored at the main base, stamp added and canceled in Toronto.
4. Here's another example of a letter being censored twice, this one is interesting because you can see the signature from the field censor is under the censor label applied at the main base.
Note also they had stopped adding stamps to the envelopes around this time.

Cheers, Bill




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