I found this 2c Prexie coil third class cover (open back flap) with four line advertising-cancellation. I have never seen this cancellation before. Who can help?
I have to disagree, Peter, re; fascinating history of Sears Roebuck & Co (SRC) DATED precancels... that topic is about the result when meter makers LOBBIED Post Office Dept. to force users of POST OFFICE APPLIED precancels to have to ADD THEIR OWN "Date" info (i.e., Month/Year and mailer ID). On other hand, our Dutch brother's example is a simple (but rarely seen outside of Mailer's Postmark Permit postmarks) private mailer's "precancel". Sort of like what a firm has to do per regulation if having Private Carriage of first-class mail (still with proper postage) outside the postal system (but in that case they're supposed to use a date in canceling). Here, we have the same effect but without date as 3rd-class doesn't require date... and ostensibly this did travel through normal mail stream but the post office was spared their own PO postmarking (still required for Single Piece third class of non-precancel stamps... think of all those machine cancels with only PO in dial, or PO + Year, etc. on all those mass Christmas card envelopes 1920s-1967 when 3rd-class single piece was less than 1st-cls). So origin PO looked the other way, and downstream they were none the wiser (look at how the stamp looks like a "local precancel" if viewed by itself).
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