London Postmarks On Printed Matter.

I finally have tracked down ref material for
the sundry unidentified and somewhat strange postmarks
on early 20th century issues.

I think BeeSee had a brace of these but I cannot locate his thread.

Basically postmarks on printed matter were of two types,
for greater London IS for "Inland Section", and FB for overseas
printed matter. (Foreign Branch)

AT some time near the turn of the century FB was dropped in favour
of FS or Foreign Section, hence the postmark here.
This one in particular can be found from the 1930's
up until the second world war period.



This postmark is Fig 178 in the following manuscript.

Acknowledgement:
"London postmarks used on printed matter and parcels from 1860"
by Curt N Fernau
translated from German by P E Robinson FRPSL

Newspaper Branch:

Most heavy mailing centres had these
Cork, Dublin Edinburgh with mail code and date
however London dispensed with these and just had
NPB (newspaper Branch) and one letter [known letters B,D and O]

A member posted this example [BeeSee?]

ID is Fig 96 ( two arcs at top and three lower arcs)
Inland Section printed matter.
Many code letters are recorded



Another members example:

The green 1/2p is mine. It is a great honour to get it texted in Yellow by Rod!

Interesting piece all round, is it on cover or cut square?
curious perfin to boot.
As an aside, it is curious to see a past tense of "to text"
is that pronounced tex-ted, or texed ?
I always muse about that.

Here's a few after a quick search. I have no idea if the CDS was used for printed matter, or for normal foreign correspondence emanating from London.

London Triangular marks.

In order to give ordinary printed circulars and advertising material a different appearance,
these began to be printed in what appeared to be typewritten characters - the typewriter
having recently become very popular.

After some initial disagreements between the Post Office and its cutomers, the PO
allowed customers to post this sort of material at the reduced printed paper rate.
It was hoped that this would make the recipient feel that this was personal
correspondance.

From 1892 postcards, letters, and wrappers thu printed could be posted as printed matter,
but the PO did not want to lose its specific right to examine this type of printed matter.
Therefore new postmarks were needed - the Triangular marks.

London Triangular Mark
An "SM" mark (Saint Martin's Place) with a number
and with breaks in the two sloping sides.
The highest recorded number is 131

Jubilee, the printed matter manuscript is copyrighted 1998
but your top 3 are not addressed, so one would tend to think not.
You have started another reason for query

Does anyone have the std postage rate London to US 1918?
perhaps the cover was franked for printed matter,
opened and checked, then struck with the FS CDS?

Your last image fits one of two types:

The postage rate to the US in 1918 was 1½d, but I don't know what the printed matter rate was, or whether it was incremental.

Yes, I see, the cover could have been overweight,
and attracted a discounted printed matter fee of 1.1/2d.

It's a little frustrating that my old (1st Edition) SG Four Kings Sepcialised doesn't show the postage rates. If anyone has a more recent version, the rates should be listed, as they are in my later edition QV Specialised.

I came across this info, which doesn't touch on Printed Matter

Letter rate

1840 1d
1918 1½d
1920 2d
1922 1½d
1940 2½d
1957 3d
1965 4d

Eunice Shanahan has the postage rates for pre 1840 mail Jubilee
She is an absolute marvel with pre stamp covers, I just love her work.

Here is a link for you that may assist re GB postage rates
http://www.imagesoftheworld.org/sta...al-rates.htm

HTH

I have an 8th Edition of the SG 4 Kings catalogue (1989). It contains an appendix dealing with postal rates, and I'm surprised to see there is no distinction based on destination, so it has to be assumed that international rates are not mentioned and the list is strictly for domestic service.

The 1½d quoted earlier for 1918 letter post was based on a very generous 4 oz. maximum weight - by 1922, the rate was still 1½d but that was for just 1 ounce. 1918 letter post cost an additional ½d for every 2 oz. A postcard cost 1d to mail. Printed papers were ½d for the first ounce, 1d up to 2 oz., and letter rates applied for heavier papers. A 6 oz. newspaper cost only ½d to send. A 3 lb. parcel could be sent for 6d, 11 lbs. went for a shilling.

Ryan

Ryan, thanks for looking that up. That's very useful info. As you say though, strange that no mention is made of international rates.

The London EC printed paper marks.

The East Central District Office was and is one of the largest post offices in London.
It is central to the life of the business quarter and so dealing with a great deal of mail.
Nearby is the Stock Excange and branches of many banks.

It follows that large numbers of printed items were sent from here throughout the world.
Many of them in newspapers In fact two types of postmark were especially intended for use on these.
A circle within a barred oval containing the letters EC below which, were numbers 1 through 10.

Later, from 1862 the range of numbers was expanded firstly to 50, then to 88

Numbers 79 to 82 and 85 to 88 are scarce.

Example Barred EC 46 on wrapper.
(from november 1890 letters began to appear above the circle between short bars, the reason for this is not clear)

In my example (which is packed away) there appears a feint "B"
between the bars, which coincides with the Brummell records
B=11 to 24 and 41 to 49