What Is The Letters L S Mean In Oval Cancel

What is the letters L S mean in that oval cancel

Looks upside down to me ST ?
Auxiliary marking divorced from the barred handstrike?

REGISTERED ? if that is a known US postal marking

A couple of observations:

1. Any lettering in the killer portion of a barred oval style cancel will always fit within the width of the bars. Thus the simplest answer I propose is an inverted partial strike of "RMS" similar to these:


2. As Rod proposes, something inverted, "ST" also could be part of street or station.

3. Sometimes one has to accept that a cancel cannot be identified and move on to other stamps.

Im curious on it being a RMS
The S doesn't look close enough to the right edge and the M appears it would be be too close to the S
Does that seem possible or it's it just my viewpoint?

There are several font/spacing varieties of the RMS killer over the years. I just picked one of them as an example. That said, most (if not all) have larger RMS letters than the OP's example, so I suspect the solution may be something else. To me, there just isn't enough to build on here.

Thanks john,
appreciate the explanation

It is not a partial strike of a known registered device. Wish we had the entire cover to examine. Might be a partial strike of some other straight line auxiliarry device that ran over the stamp.

You can note in John's example, the blurry outline of the smudged,
and unreadable CDS (Circular date stamp) part of the DUPLEX
hand hammer.
Possibly used for 1000's of hours and worn, or dodgy ink pad.

A clearer example, with partial GRAND RAPIDS CDS part of RMS 6 Bar duplex killer.

Would the 7c postal rate, at the time of issue of this stamp,
give us any hints as to use? and directions to possible aux markings?

I flipped the image over.

My guess is the word is "EAST"

Anyone aware of a duplex cancel with the word "EAST" in the killer?

I looked various places, but could not find one. It seems possible.

Linus

Sorry Linus, that is impossible here.
The "ST" or whatever it is, lies outside the boundary of the Barred Killer.
It has to be another hand stamped hammer impression.

The letters are also not congruent with the orientation of the bars.
They are at an angle to them.

Postmarks can make fools of us all, at one time or another

As a broad rule, cancels are struck onto stamps.
Auxiliary marks are struck onto the cover and not used as a cancel.

Auxiliary Markings include:

addressograph markings
ambulance envelopes
cancellations
censor markings
crash markingstest mail spray marking
delay markings
disinfection markings
handstamped markings
military markings associated with deliverabilityCFS yellow forwarding label
pointing fingers
postage due markings
return to sender markings
security screening markings
spray markings
yellow forwarding labels
and ..... (your favorites)

https://www.postal-markings.org/

Could it be part of a pre-cancellation name?