A Queensland Stamp Cancelled In Marseille, France.

Some time ago I was sorting through some kiloware material when I came across an unusual cancellation on a Queen Victoria 1d Australian (Queensland) stamp, it had been cancelled in Marseille, thinking this to be unusual I contacted Mr Mick Bister of the France and colonies philatelic society in Great Britain and sent him this scan of the stamp that I had found.........

Almost within the hour he replied with these comments >

"It is such a pity that early collectors removed interesting stamps from the covers! A great loss to postal historians.

The stamp has indeed been cancelled upon arrival at Marseille (in France). You can see part of the département name of Bouches du Rhône at the bottom of the cds.

The letter or postcard was unloaded upon the ship's arrival at Marseille where it was sorted for onward transmission to Paris. Here it would be resorted for its final destination in France or beyond. Noticing that the stamp had missed the Australian canceller, the French postal clerk cancelled it with a Marseille cds.before putting it into the Paris bag.

It's certainly unusual to see a Queensland stamp with a French cancellation but how much better it would have been on an entire cover."

I thanked him very much for his assistance and information given on what was an interesting find.

So remember not to remove a stamp from its cover until you have checked it out !!!

I've got lots of these stamps that bear a cancel from an unlikely place. I call them "strange bedfellows."

I have several New South Wales stamps with foreign cancellations, some of which have been shown here.





Just one of the many aspects of NSW philately!

6 barred "A" would be.............?

Hi Rod,

That one is from Auckland.

Nothing too exotic

Thanks Bobby,
I didn't recognise it, only have one other barred alpha hammer
NA=Napier
(Your image has text string "barred V")

Yes, I initially thought it was a V.

I have to correct myself, I also have Barred "TI" = Timaru.

Here is a Registered cover with Australian stamps cancelled in France.

The Registration label "G.G.S./Corio" denotes the origin at Geelong Grammar School. Backstamped in Melbourne in 1948, the stamps weren't cancelled until the cover reached Paris, where the straight line cachet "PARIS GARE D'AUSTERL[ITZ]" was applied twice.

No doubt the double cancellation in Paris was to cancel all the stamps on the cover Plateflaw, at least the recipient had the common sense to save the complete cover, unlike the one that I found in the kiloware.

A nice piece of postal history ! WM