Show Your 1851-61 Era Cancellations And Postal Markings

The American Stampless Cover Catalog (ASCC from now on), characterizes this Mamaroneck cancel style as being known in Red, and Black, during the period of 1843-1854.

Of course one should always take a critical eye towards anything, but I would go with "red" here, as I believe I see some evidence of sulfuretting, on both the stamp and cancel.

I think its actually interesting to take a look at the first Chicopee cover that @philazilla posted, here - https://goscf.com/t/89572&whichpage=2#830816

And I'll throw in a similar, but slightly different one -



This is a 3c OB #10A 16R5E, from July 28,1851.

What do the covers have in common?
- they are both early 3c stamp usages, from 1851. The stamps came out July 1st.
- the CDS's on both, show a "rate".

The Chicopee cover shows a '5' , which is totally superfluous and even incorrect. The proper rate is what was paid by the stamp, which is 3c. The 5 is a left over stampless marking. There was no need for a specific rate indicator after stamps showed up, since the amount represented by the stamp franking is self-explanatory. This CDS could be used on stampless covers at this time, if they were unpaid, and that may well have been the intent of it.

The Lowell cover shows 3cts PAID, which, unlike the Chicopee cover, is actually correct. But it is still unnecessary, and is also a stampless marking. The Chicopee cover uses the CDS to kill the stamp, while Lowell had evolved enough at least, to use a grid killer, separate from the CDS.

The Lowell marking is of course valid at this time for stampless covers, since people still did not have to pre-pay postage with stamps. It was just encouraged. So this marking was current, but designed with stampless covers in mind.

I think these two covers are an interesting study in the transition from stampless to the stamped era.

TXstamp, super interesting, thank you for sharing the cover and your analysis

made me think of this cover, 1854, with on the 18th a 3 cts CDS and one day later one with only #3 on it below the date

Interesting cover. That one missed being picked up on the 18th, by whatever transport means (train, stage, steamer), and for whatever reason got stamped again the next day. It might even be the same device with different plugs inserted ...

Here is an 1852 stampless cover from NYC to Canada. Sent from NYC on Nov 23, 1852. It crossed into Canada at Buffalo per the "UD. STATES 6D" transit marking (Simpson's p. 318, No. 44, Rarity 6) and arrived on the 25th per a very indistinct backstamp. The addressee is William H. Merritt, founder of the Welland Canal which linked Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

Adding another blue Chicopee MS. CDS with an integral "5" rating to the mix just for fun -- unfortunately only on piece. Looks like the exact same strike that Philazilla showed a few days ago -- except his was on a #10A position 45R2E -- thus most likely used on October 30, 1851 -- whereas this one is on a #11A -- position 55L2L -- implying that the Chicopee post office continued to use their CDS with the integral "5 rating" well into 1852 -- as this one has a SEP 6 date -- and since the EKU for plate 2L was in January 1852 -- this one cannot be any earlier than September 6, 1852.

Here is a very strange usage on piece. It is a Lecompton, Kansas territorial usage -- docketed 1857. The strange thing about it is that the stamp on the left is position 22L6 -- and the stamp on the right is position 54L1L. Plate 6 was current in 1857 -- but plate 1L was taken out of service in 1855. Too bad this one is not on cover

Last one for today -- Augusta, GEO with an integral '3 PAID' -- position 29L1L -- and a very early plate 1L prinitng impression -- implying that this one was used March 1852 -- so I guess the Augusta post office was still using their "stampless" rate markers as killers in 1852 just like the Chicopee post office was (all as explained by txstamp in his post earlier today. (txstamp -- did I get this right as I am at a very elementary level when it comes to postal history)?

Ioagoa - love that 2-plate territorial piece! I wonder what the story is?

Hi Philazilla --

I have no idea how the "2 plate" usage may have happened -- but when I was plating it back in 2016 -- I sent it to Dick Celler for plating confirmation -- especially on the plate 6 stamp as the 1L stamp overlaps the RFL of the 22L6.

Dick speculated that Lecompton was probably a tiny town -- with no post office -- and with the general store functioning as such. Dick further speculated that after the plate 6 stamp was affixed -- it was then determined that the correct rate was 6c -- either by weight or distance -- and the plate 1L stamp was added -- perhaps had been laying around in the store's postal "stamp / cash box" for years unsold. Of course, all of this is just a wild guess.

Definitely a "stamp with a story".

Regards // ioagoa

Ioagoa, that is one hell of an interesting piece!!!!

thank you for showing and explaining the story behind it

Philazila, that is a great stampless cross border cover.

my favoriete cross border one in my collection is this one:




Wells, Fargo & Co's Express, "Yreka". Black on yellow label with manuscript town designation, affixed on cover with two 3¢ dull red (26) singles tied by "Wells Fargo & Co. Express, Yreka" oval handstamp (simpson page 350) to Victoria, British Columbia, manuscript "Collect 63c" express rating at top left; faults including lower right corner, soiling, Fine and rare cross border label use, ex-Hackett.

about the label itself:
San Francisco lithographer, probably Britton & Rey, used standard "printing blocks" of a train and a steamship to design these labels. Early labels were printed by Town & Bacon on unsurfaced papers of various colors - later they used glazed papers.

Correct. I should probably expand on this to clarify.

July 1, 1851 is when the 1851 issue stamps - 1c and 3c at least, were initially available for use. At this point in time, pre-payment of postage by stamps was not required. There was still a sizeable volume of stampless mail. In 1851, there was probably still more stampless mail than stamped. Gradually over time, this flipped. So the stampless markings were needed, but were often used interchangeably on stamped mail.

January 1, 1856 the PO made pre-payment of domestic mail by stamps as compulsory. The sender was permitted to pay in money, but the post offices were instructed to apply stamps where the sender did not have them.

Smaller POs, and especially frontier towns, such as in the Kansas Territory, or California gold rush areas, etc, might not always have stamps. In that case stampless mail was tolerated out of necessity. Also, foreign mail was still often sent stampless, as the regulation did not (to my knowledge) apply to that.

In the spirit of Kansas Territory, and also, stampless domestic mail after 1/1/1856 (the latter cover), I'll post a couple of Denver City "Tombstones", as they are referred to. I really like these markings.

These are pretty scarce markings. These two were used while Denver was still part of the Kansas Territory. It was 2/28/61 when the Colorado Territory was formed, and Denver was assimilated into that.

This first cover is interesting in that the Denver postmark was applied on in-bound mail, which is unusal. It is Aug 29, 1860, and note the address specifying "Pikes Peak". The Pike's Peak gold rush occurred in 1859, and mirrored the California one to a lesser degree, but caused the almost immediate formation of Denver (originally Auraria and Coraville). This was carried on the third westbound contract mail to Denver, which was carried by the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Co (the Co that also created and ran the Pony Express - at this time, no less).

Note that this marking is Sans-Serif on the KT in particular. This is the first type.



This is a second-type Tombstone. Note that the KT has serifs. This cover is stampless, as the Denver PO apparently ran out of stamps briefly at this time. The PAID, indicates that the proper postage was paid. This is Sep 6, 1860.

Cross border and territory covers are really interesting.

Here's another of my University covers.