Melbourne Cancelller 55 X ?

Hi all
Trying to work this one out.
Would appreciate any help
Thanks

Those are two strikes, probably of different cancellers.

NSK
Thanks
Agree, I would have expected more doubling.
Not evident except for circle

Could these be 5 X and 5 W?

NSK
Great pickup
I did not see that!
Interesting.
I still question where the double / shadow
" Melbourne " "MY 19"

A double strike of '5 X'.'5' is the canceller number, 'X' indicates the time of 3.30 PM - 4.30 PM (Linfield and Davies, page 8).

Why wasn't the "x" double struck?
How is the evident double circle explained?
Interesting

The letter just left of the X is not an X. The left line is too vertical.

Agree

If the 'X' is a time interval, would 'W' have been the preceding time interval? If so, could the original strike have been just before 3:30 PM. When it was noticed this was a partly dry or defective cancellation, could it have been struck again a little later when the time letter had been set to 'X'?

As to the second 'Melbourne', could the top right of the 'M' be visible just to the left of the circle left of the 'M' and slightly offset downwards from the 'M'.

Great question but doesn't explain the rest!

Towards the top of the 'O' and 'U', you can see the 'U' of the other strike.
To the left and slightly overlapping the 'M' in "MY" is the 'M' of the other 'MY' strike.
The year '96' shows double.

It becomes speculative.
Was there an inking problem and did the canceller dry out? It may have taken some time to solve the inking problem. During that time, the time slug may have been changed. Once the inking problem had been solved, the mail was cancelled anew.

As I wrote, this is speculative. It may hold as much value as assuming a koala paid a visit to the office and nicked the postmaster's ink pad.

Things that can go wrong will go wrong.

Paul,

What we can't see is the nature of the postal item the stamps was attached to. It may have had some soft contents or the person applying the cancel didn't strike it well on the first application and did it again.

I'm confident it is just a double strike of the same canceller.


J

Thanks everyone
A fascinating journey