Show Your 1851-61 Era Cancellations And Postal Markings

I will just reiterate my previous reply - nothing bogus here that I see, just stuff that came along with the cover, and should be kept with it of course - at least until it can be deciphered.

The telegraph of course, existed at this time - in the Eastern US, but I am not aware of use of the term telex in 1856. I believe at this time, telegraph operators would interpret the morse code and write down the message by hand.

I would suggest doing google searches on these names - I don't have time now to chase that down - maybe someone else can.

https://sparedshared23.com/2025/06/...beth-dorsey/

This WH Dorsey had passed away 2 years prior, but maybe its him, and the sender didn't know, or possibly he had a son.

Baltimore is the right location so this is probably at least close.

edit: maybe him:
Gilbert Livingston Thompson (1796-1874)
https://americanaristocracy.com/peo...ton-thompson

edit2:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial...ton-thompson

Tx

very nice, specially with on the advertising cover

in the early years schools and factories sometimes had their own, in house, postoffice. they had their own cancelling devices.

here is one from a factory/mill:
this was build on top of the ruins I presume:
Victory Mills was a historic textile mill building located at Victory in Saratoga County, New York, and was built in 1918 by the American Manufacturing Company. It was a rectangular, five story brick and reinforced concrete building measuring 282 feet (86 m) by 157 feet (48 m), and had about 220,000 square feet (20,000 m2) of space. It featured six tower structures, five for stairs and one holding a water tower, and also operated as a cotton mill until 1929, when operations moved to Guntersville, Alabama

1st one is on an #11 cover:




the postmark changed and here is the "new version" on a cover with a #26




Simpson page 106, Rarity 6, but no mention of the 2 different cancels

thank you mark, will digg further and I i find something I will share off course

lets see if we can keep this topic alive




#26 with a ornamented Harveyville pa CDS and a geometric fancy cancellation,
simpson page 69 #306 R4, Quaker docketed on back 4 mo 13th 1858



ornamented Malone NY cancel Simpson page 63 #237 R 4, stamp looks OB





Quaker dated CDS from Sandy spring, maryland, on a #25 stamp
simpson page 89, #6 with R 8




#26 with ornamented CDS from Burlington VT, simpson page 73, R3

Those are interesting covers, with neat markings. Thx for posting.

I agree that the Malone 3c stamp has an OB appearance to it, approaching a plate 2E copper - but impossible to really know from a scan of course.

Maybe @ioagoa, @classic, or someone, can take the time to plate it for you?
Looks like a B relief to me.

I have lots more stuff I can post over time, ... busy with work right now.

Hi Dutch (and Hi TxStamp) --

Dutch -- Your Malone, NY 3c stamp with the APR 6 cds is definitely a Scott #10A -- position 86R2E. FYI -- this position has a really strong recut in the lower right triangle, although partially obscured by the cancel on your copy -- but still shows nicely. The usage is most likely April 1852 -- so starting to get a little late for an OB -- but still considered a contemporaneous usage.

Regards // ioagoa

Thank you so much Ioagoa!

Here are some New York City square grid cancels.

The 13-bar one, was used extensively on 1847 issue covers. Its use was discontinued shortly into July 1851 after the 1851 issue of stamps came out. It is known in red and black.

This is a very rare use of a red 13-bar NYC grid on a 1c stamp (plate 1E):


Here is the 13-bar grid in black, used on a 3c orange brown stamp. This cover also happens to be the earliest documented use of a stamp from Plate 1-intermediate (1i) of the 3c stamp. July 12th, 1851. The earliest use from any plate after Plate 1e of the 3c stamp.


The 13-bar grid was then replaced, with a new 11-bar square grid.
The earliest known use of the 11-bar grid is on July 17th 1851. That cover is immediately below.



And to round things out, here's another (sorry for the poor scan) of a vertical strip of 3 of the 1c stamp, #7, 11-21-31L1E from July 23, 1851.


New York cancels are a very interesting study, since it was such an important and high volume post office with an interesting history of how they cancelled mail.

I accumulated these items separately over time, and just realized that I had a nice little nucleus that I could post here. A few of these were included in an article in the Chronicle here - an article well worth a read.
https://chronicle.uspcs.org/PDF/Chr...08/12709.pdf

This is an a pic I've posted somewhere on this site before. It was an attempt to have a page of various NY marks roughly in chronological order.
I have since undone that page. Hoping to make a better display in the future.

tx, the first thing I noted was the Chase plate notation on the July,12 cover. To learn its the earliest use of the plate state.., fantastic. Also again I think how nice the quality of your items are. Thanks for sharing.

txstamp, is this the NYC 13-bar grid? I bought it not for the cancel, but for it being about the closest thing to a first day that I could afford. It was interesting reading the USPCS article about that cancel. It would be great to know if this is another specimen.

@zebraman - yes that is the 13-bar grid in red on a nice early use cover. Good going.

It is not quite as rare on the 3c stamp, since that stamp paid the primary mail rate and was much more heavily used in July than the 1c stamp was. Still its a good item to get - not common.

With the 1c stamp, just finding any July 1851 cover with a 1c stamp on it can be challenging. They are out there, for sure - so I can't call them scarce, but it takes some looking. Now factor in looking for a specific cancel that wasn't used all of July and it gets pretty rough.

@stampcrow - I like your New York page, and I will study it, hopefully, later today, when I get time.

@stampcrow - that's a nice progression of New York City postmarks that you have put together. Well done.

Just to pick out one - the lower left stamp - with the MAR (March) month, is the Type III Ocean Mail postmark. That particular device was used from 1854-1861.

The Ocean Mail postmarks were used on mail that entered the mails in NYC and were outbound via steamer for the Pacific - typically headed for California, for example. This was usually the route to the West, across Panama.

Here is a Type I Ocean Mail postmark, used from 1851-53. These Type I's can be a bit tough to find. There is a Type II from 1852-54 with the Month-Day notably higher than the Type I along with a larger font.



If you want to read a bit more about the above specific cover, and its duplicate letter, you can do so here -
https://www.philamercury.com/covers.php?id=29901