Australia Cancellation Hunter?

This one is a puzzler. I posted it a long time ago in my Australian Oddities thread, but more to see the variety in the lower right hand corner. The stamp is an official, Scott OB19, ACSC 63ba(1)h. The entire stamp is shown below, and is a bit messy.

Now I'm interested in the cancellation(s). I rotated it, and used Postmark Reveal to try to bring out as much detail as possible.

I believe that I am seeing two different cancellations. The first has HUNTER with a date of NOV 26 3PM, but I can't see the year under the smudge. The second appears to be HOBART, but is incomplete and I think I see a date starting with 11- below.
Any ideas of the city or type of cancellations? Thanks for looking.

Hi Partime, I suspect that the two cancellations that you are seeing on your stamp are the same cancellation. Hunter Island was a small island that became incorporated into Hobart and the area was an important area for shipping into Hobart in its early years. If you google Hunter Island, Hobart, this will give some history about its early importance to Hobart. There is a Hunter St in Hobart. I suspect that this is where your cancellation originated. I have a couple of references on Tasmanian postmarks and there is no reference to Hunter linked to Hobart on any cancellation. This may be due to limitations of the necessary details in the books I have.
The author of the books I have welcomes questions to the Tasmanian Philatelic Society Bulletin Board online - www.tps.org.au/bb
The author also gives his email address and if you would like to access this, message me.

StevieG, Surely, you didn't mean to say that?

What I meant was that the same cancellation was applied twice. That is, the two cancellations are not different.

The '1' suggest "HOBART" is at the top of the cancellation. It is very clear "HUNTER" is at the top of the cancellation. It appears impossible these are two strikes of the same device.

Also, the letter at the bottom of the "HUNTER" strike does not appear to be a 'B.' That would also rule out that it is a device that has 'HUNTER' at the top and 'HOBART' at the bottom.

Edit: could that hunter strike read "HUNTER N.S.W."?

I did locate a very short reference to Hunter, Victoria, where it is claimed that Hunter is a locality in the City of Greater Bendigo. Population 44 in 2016, and Postcode 3558. But, nothing more than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Region

It, however, is unlikely a region's name and not a town name appears on the cancellation.
I see no reference to a locality with the name 'Hunter' in this region.

Could the 'HUNTER' postmark be a foreign cancellation?

Topaz Sharpen AI was able to improve the original stamp scan a little bit. Just added for reference.



I see that there is a Hunter in Missouri (Hunter, MO).

This more recent Missouri postmark from Palmer uses a similar format:


Found on ebay at:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125901895084

I think fairdinkumstamps may have solved it.

Most credit due to Partime of course for identifying Missouri (with the foreign nudge from Bobby De La Rue).

It would still be nice to see a contemporaneous cancellation from Hunter - hopefully we have some USA postmark collectors out there - or a USA postmarks website that has it listed with an image?

I looked at one or two sites but no luck with Hunter in the KGV period.

One specific question: What is the diameter of the Hunter cancel?

While it seems odd for a U.S. office to cancel incoming mail on the stamp, and with an origin cancel (rather than a receiving device), let's still explore.

The USPOD contracted with several manufacturers who produced several sizes and styles of "steel duplex" handstamp cancels in this era. The dial sizes, killers, number of internal changeable slots, and typesetting vary.

Here is a common cancel style that seems to resemble the Hunter cancel most closely. The dial diameter is 28mm on the Camden Point cancel and 30-31mm on the other 5.

I measure close to 30 mm going from the line above E of Hunter to the line below M on the opposite side.

What if the cover had been redirected?

Most clerks would have applied the cancel to a blank place on the cover for readability, although granted, it would then likely be an "origin" marking device use. All this seems to be getting far afield as we don't have the cover.