What's The Story Behind This Hd2 Machine Cancel?

This International HD2 die shouldn't exist. There was never a post office of New Branford, Conn. My guess is that it was supposed to be North Branford. The cover is obviously philatelic, and has no other markings on it.

I agree, this looks like an error by the dial manufacturer. The Machine Cancel Society's "Volume 1, International Postal Supply Co. Hey-Dolphin Cancelling Machine Model HD-2" volume from 1995 records North Branford had an HD-2 in use 2/2/1959-1960, which I see I own the EKU example.



Your 1958 error dial may be what came with the machine when it first was deployed there, and quickly corrected. Interesting that the killer was also replaced. It is hard to assess whether yours is philatelic or not, given what you show. Errors like this are not very common, but seldom command much premium.

The HD-2 machine looks like this:

A simplified description: The stack of raw mail is placed at the back left, the crank turned, and the stack of cancelled mail accumulates at the front right.

Thank you, John!!

Good to get some confirmation of what I thought, and good to see that North Branford did in fact start using an HD-2 shortly after my New Branford, as I suspected would have been the case. I'm sure my cover is philatelic, because there is nothing else on it. No other postal markings, and no address or return address. Maybe this was a test cancellation before they even noticed the dial error.

Kelvin

If you need the North Branford for your collection, you can message me through this Forum when you get to 50 posts and I'll send it to you. Free.

The date ranges recorded by the MCS are what the members have seen to that point. No doubt the true range likely extends back to your error cancel and also likely somewhat beyond 1960. There might even be a dial-change with the zip code at the bottom about late-1965 or early-1966. Something for the local specialists to seek

P.S. Philatelic vs non-philatelic. What I was hinting at was that you did not show the entire cover, so it was impossible for anyone else to reach any conclusion. While it may seem like extra work, it is often helpful to have a scan of the entire postal item (including the back side if there are markings), then a secondary close-up to emphasize the actual question. It is amazing what else the readers can tell a poster about tangential aspects of their item, although admittedly, probably not much else here.