I Need Some Help With This NYC Cancel

Does anybody know what the period of use would be for this cancel? I have pretty good reason to believe this is an 1852 use. 1853 seems unlikely.


This is a similar cancel from Philadelphia, which I also believe to be an early usage. Not sure if the black Philly necessarily dates it to late 1853 or later like a black Philly cancel does on ordinary domestic mail of the period.

These are my stamps, BTW. I only found one cover with what appears to be the same cancel and it is from 1856. Doesn't seem to be a very common cancel at all. At this point I would be happy to know if an 1852 or 53 usage can be ruled out or not.

It is the New York cancel that I really care about.

sinclair2010

I did some searching and found a useful link https://www.uspcs.org/resource-cent...el-revisted/

From what I was able to gather the size of the base of the W in New can help determine 1852 - 1853 usage.




Hope this helps. You may have already come across this reference.

It doesn't really look like a domestic mail cancel to me.

It resembles very strongly, the style of exchange office cancels used on British Treaty mail throughout much of the 1850s. The red would be a credit to Britain. I admit to not specifically locating this one - I haven't looked too hard though.

For the exchange office, the '6' credit could occur on a double-rate British Treaty letter to England - 48c rate pre-paid and sent via American Packet. Unfortunately, that doesn't narrow the scope for you. Also, if true, for what its worth, there would likely have been two more 12c stamps on the cover.

'6' is also commonly found on French Treaty mail after April 1, 1857. This cancel, however, is not in the style of any of those that I am familiar with.

I'll look some more as I get time today. I'm sure that cancel has been recorded somewhere - my first look at North Atlantic Mail Sailings - I didn't find it, but I may have missed it.

I agree with the direction of txstamp's reply.

Consider:



(American Stampless Cover Catalog, 4th ed, v2, page 105)

Good find John.

Rumsey sale 74, Lot 1411 is what I was talking about - may or may not be exactly the same one, but is the general idea.

http://www.rumseyauctions.com/aucti...er/74/109/10

Thank you everybody for the responses thus far. As long as this is the same cancel referenced in the book, the ASCC is pointing to a known usage of 1853.