Show Your 1851-61 Era Cancellations And Postal Markings

I have been thinking that we really don't have a general purpose thread for focusing on Cancellations and Postal Markings on 1851 and 1857 issue stamps and covers - or stampless during that period.

So, I figured I would start one, and see how it goes.

You can post off-cover stamps with any cancel of any type, or you can post full covers or pieces. Additionally, since there were still quite a few stampless covers used between 1851-61, if you have a stampless cover from that time frame, with an interesting cancellation, or postal marking, feel free to post it here.

There have been a lot of nice cancel items up for sale in the last year or so, and this kind of motivated me to think about this more. For example, Wade Saadi's "Struck on Stamps" series of sales, starting here :

https://siegelauctions.com/auctions/sale/1329

Some useful reference material for those interested in this area -

My personal favorite is Simpson-Alexander's US Postal Markings 1851-61. This book was part of what inspired me to collect this material to begin with many years ago.

https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...okmarked.pdf

The American Postal Markings Catalog
https://www.worldcovers.org/

The American Stampless Cover Catalogs, Vol I-III, linked off of here:
https://www.uspcs.org/resource-cent...nic-library/

Additionally, the Chase 3c book, the Brookman volumes, and many other links on the above list are useful.

Ashbrook Vol II is another dated, but still useful reference book on postal history and postal markings of the era:
https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...okmarked.pdf

The Skinner-Eno cancellation book serves as a primer for fancy cancellations of the era. During 1851-61, fancy cancels were few and far between. They started to take off towards the end of this era, and exploded in the 1860s, mostly after this period.

https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...okmarked.pdf

I'll start off -



Cranes Forge, Louisiana, came up with the "USED" killer.
Postmarked faint "Crane's Forge, La, Aug, 18" (1856) cds.

While everyone else was busy making killers to obliterate stamps, Crane's Forge made their message pretty clear with their version of a killer.

I'll throw out a slightly less exotic example, in order to illustrate something to be aware of when expertising covers.



This cover originated in Boston, and has a red Boston CDS, with black large PAID killers.
The cover pays the double 6c rate over 3000 miles, to San Francisco, in Oct 1852. It would have traveled via the Panama route.

So from a cancel point of view, what I wanted to point out with this cover, is that the CDS and the killers are of different colors, yet they originated at the same PO.

That does occasionally happen, in this era - but it is much more the rule that the CDS and killer tend to be of the same color, from the same ink. So much so, that a common method to aid in validating that a stamp originated on a particular cover, is to compare the ink in the killer on the stamp to the ink of the CDS on the cover - particularly if not tied. Of course, that is of no use here since they are different colors.

The key for this type of scenario, is to become familiar with a given PO's method of operation. Baltimore, for example, and clearly, Boston, and others, did in fact use different colors at times.

Here's a straight line Jan 31. Unfortunately it's off cover so I don't know where it's from.

stampcrow - that's a good one! Straightlines are both interesting and highly collectible.

This will be a fun thread!

Christmas Day in New York City

University of Va

Louisville & Lexington RR

ioagoa - those are very nice items. Thanks for sharing.

I like the OB color on the stamps with the college (Va) cancel.

Collecting College cancels is certainly "a thing to do", and they aren't quite as common overall as some other categories of cancels.

I'm relinking this image, which I already posted elsewhere, but here, to focus on the fact that the CDS has an inverted year date - 1857, upside down. That happens when a slug in the device gets inserted incorrectly. This is a very early plate 8 1c Ty V usage.




Here is another cover, where the CDS has an inverted Month. FEB is upside down.



In addition to the NYC CDS, it was also forwarded, unpaid, to Toledo, OH, as indicated by the numeral "5" in Red, matching what is no doubt a red Beaver, PA CDS (faint).

The stamps are Ty IV #9, 71-81-91R1L with centerline.
I have been aware of, and wanted this cover for about 35 years. Finally got it.

Savannah *GEO* fancy CDS

Petersburg VA blue CDS with integral '3cts'

Off cover postal history

Again off cover. British cancel?

I have a few college cancel covers. Here is one that I have an image of from when I posted it perviously.