Panama Pacific Expo Cancel On Hong Kong Stamps

Interesting. looking at the cancels that are neater, I see a multitude of beads in the lines . From a distance it looks like a uniform line.Qlso the beads follow the center line of the letters.
It would be interesting to see what that canceller looked like up close.It could also be related to the drying of the ink.Migration of the inks (as you brought up ).But all the cities have these beads...

Perf12, you are seeing something I am not. Do you have additional examples you can show? Looking directly at a stack of over 150 expo cancels from up and down the west coast, I do not see any beading, so you may be seeing something related to the scanning resolution of the few examples shown here?

That is why I am thinking the speckling on the original poster's stamps is a very transient issue of two ink solvent chemistries acting essentially as oil and water.

Normally, the ink is applied in a thin layer by the machine and dries quickly, or else there would be considerable ink imprinting on the back of mail, which isn't the case.

right_transient
This cover is on ebay (another paquebot)I wonder if these were just made for collectors?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164715046490

Thanks for all the great comments added to this thread.

hy-brasil said...




Yes, you would get a stamp with only bars, like this one from my collection.



Which lines up nicely with stamp #3 in my original post.



Linus

John Becker, thanks for the details explaining the dots in my cancel. I think you are right in your reasoning, and it would not be widely seen in other cities.

Perf12, thanks for the scan of another paquebot cover with a San Francisco cancel that is very interesting. Notice the top and bottom words of the slogan look like this:

- WORLD'S -

- 1915 -

Those four marks in the corners are not on my 3 Hong Kong stamps in the OP. We can eliminate that particular type of SF cancel, can we not?

Linus

I doubt we can eliminate San Francisco on that basis of no dots.

Note the date of the New Zealand cover. It's 1913, with this slogan publicizing the fair for two years before it started and ended. So this is in a fairly new state. The dots could have worn enough to not print in many cases. If you look at the groups of covers and cards posted, not all have 4 dots nor are the dots always as strong as they are on the New Zealand cover.

There is probably more than one slogan die for that city, typically with each cancelling machine having its own slogan or killer bars. Plus the slogans would not necessarily be perfectly identical at this time. Compare the letter shapes in the cancels shown. A specialized clerk who knew rates from foreign countries and could figure if postage due was chargeable would check paquebot mail, but this was just then dropped in the regular batch of mail for cancellation, to be sent on for sorting. By this time such a clerk would likely be wasting time to provide special cancellations that would be meaningless after leaving the US port of entry. "PAQUOBOT" (sic) says it all in any case.

The paquebot marking was applied to the letter at the port of arrival, probably as the clerk checked for proper postage. The letter was either hand-cancelled or run through the cancelling machines to cancel the postage stamps to prevent their re-use.

If you check the position and relationship of letters in the slogan, you can say certain cancels do not look like my 3 HK stamps. If the last "A" of "PANAMA" was an arrowhead pointing north, it points to a spot on the word "WORLD'S" and the SF cancel above is not like the cancel alignment on my 3 HK stamps.

Looking at the Tacoma example, I like the alignment of letters real well to my 3 HK stamps. I am still thinking all 3, and now all 4 HK stamps, were probably cancelled in Tacoma, Washington. Of course, being off cover, you cannot say that is 100% true, just my best guess.

Linus

I like how the "L" of the word "WORLD'S" has a small ink blob at the top of the "L" and two of my HK stamps have this.

I like where the last "A" of PANAMA points to the "L" and how close they are together.

The slogan dies are well documented by the expo and machine collectors. See William J Bomar's "Postal Markings of United States Expositions"

The slogans are each unique in some manner - the setting the the letters, dots, length of the killer bars beyond the box, die spaces (filled or empty), cuts in the killer bars, etc. Each has a "fingerprint". I have no doubt the original stamps in this thread can be ID'd to a specific die/city, but I have not had the time available among other projects. (Although yes Linus, Tacoma looks like a very good candidate for a match for the letter alignments you note.)

The dies are steel and did not wear appreciably over the short span of a few years use. In the case of the San Francisco cancel shown, in addition to the dots, note also the empty die space "hole" cut into the 3rd and 4th killer bars.

Quoting myself, earlier in this discussion...




I thought one of you would challenge me on this statement. Where is your evidence that backs Tacoma?

Shown below are some of the other stamps I bought from the same Florida dealer, at the same time, showing Tacoma hand cancels.

Now you know "the rest of the story."

Linus

And I was just getting ready to question you earlier claim!

The cover scanned below recently sold on ebay. It shows how mail from Hong Kong arrived in Tacoma, Washington, and was hammered with a Tacoma receiving duplex cancel before travelling to Seattle, Washington on the SS Tacoma. I bid on this cover, but I was unsuccessful.

Note: My Hong Kong stamps just above in this thread were cancelled with a Tacoma Index 1 killer and this cover has an earlier style Tacoma dial with an Index 3 killer.

Not my cover, images snipped from ebay.

Linus

A few more on arrival.