A Postman In A Hurry To Use A Canadian Stamp

nice strike, Port Williams NS January 6, 1929, 2 days before the official date of issue

I am not sure if its the Earliest Recorded Date, but it still a nice find as issue date was Jan 8, 1929. Too bad it was not man on mast variety.

Edit- Also, it was postmarked on a Sunday! Issue date would have been Tuesday.

If anyone has a date earlier than January 6th, please let us know..even Harris is welcome #9786;...

I hate to throw cold water on a find like this. At that time Sundays were sacrosanct. No work. My thinking, and we have seen it before, it could be an inverted date. 9 makes more sense and the post office was open on the 9th. Clerks often mixed up and down when inserting the slug into the hammer. Used to happen to me.

not that sacrosanct; June 20 1897; it s a Sunday....If we start believing that all postal workers always get dates wrong, half of the catalogues will be questionable...

You're going to say: the postman made a mistake, it's more like July JY than June JU..it s a hammer error..... with assumptions, you can put Paris in a bottle

Not impossible than a post office were opened Sunday; please see what I find in Port Williams NS website:

Post Office

In the early days there were five post offices in Port Williams and its immediate surroundings. The central office in Port Williams began in 1858, and it distributed mail to four other offices.

June 3rd, 2000 was considered an historic day by Port Williams post office staff and local residents when a new post office cancellation stamp was first used. The concept originated with Kenneth Bezanson who has the postmark designed by noted Cape Breton songwriter, Allister MacGillivray. The stamp harks back to the era of sailing ships when village folk say Port Williams was referred to as "the Biggest Little Port in the world". Port Williams now has the first postmark in the Valley.

I am leaning strongly in a similar direction as bk80 ....

Stepping back and thinking objectively about small and remote offices ... they would have modest need for 50 cent stamps. What were the distribution logistics for high denomination new issues? It seems unlikely the Canadian PO would have sent out these stamps early - or automatically to all offices like during later times.

As an additional plausible theory ... the date-kit had for the cancel contained year dates only through (19)29 - the end of the decade - and the postmaster did not realize this until about January 1. It took a bit to get the next group of update year dates ordered and this stamp may very well have been used on January 6, 1930, with the previous year date slug still in place.

As for Sunday, what happened in 1858 or 2000 is not relevant. One needs to consult the operations manuals in effect in 1929-30 era.

Elagabale78, no doubt you will push-back against my post here also, but I find it hard to believe this is a legitimate pre-date given the denomination, day of week, size of town, etc., and I would be surprised if one could get a genuine cert for it without additional documentation. The odds are just too long against several reasonable alternate scenarios. But if you believe it, submit it for a cert and report back to this thread.

If it helps you sleep... lol

About my reply for Port Wlilliams. I meant to say that the major post offices were open on Sundays, Port Williams served 4 others, not a small one then.. but that's a minor detail lol ...however we have a nice subject with many opinions, its OK and That s why this website exist!

You miss the point. Proper scholarship does not just make claims, it backs them up with evidence from contemporary postal regulations and other sources about actual Sunday operations, stamp distribution, mail distribution, etc. In other words, authenticating this takes considerable homework, which is not evident here so far. I have no dog in this fight so this is my last post on this thread. Good luck.

There's no point in being preachy, the sun will still rise tomorrow

When moving an EKU or EDU back to a 6 when a 9 can be inverted to a 6, needs supporting documentation. I collect postmark mistakes which includes inverted, number, numbers, date(**), month, entire dial, etc. Such errors are quite regularly seen as humans tend to make human errors as bk80 points out. This is a bit like finding a FDC were the "9" was inverted and suddenly you have a 3 day earlier 6th. Without proper documentation a "no opinion" certificate is warranted.

Additionally postmark devices are NOT updated as they should. Also human error. I have the earliest dated cover with a parcel post stamp.There is zero question reading the 4-bar cancel as 8-16-(19)12. A strong wonderful strike. The only problem with that is the stamp was not designed and approved for several more months, adding in plate making, printing and distribution and the date becomes even more odd.What happened? Simple the mail matter was mailed on August 16th, at a seasonal post office only open summer months. The clerk or clerk(s) overlooked this device when updating all of the cancellation devices for 1913, leaving 1912 in the one used.

I also have a few covers which arrived days before they were mailed. In those cases either the postmark date or receiving date was incorrect. The real nice ones involve registered mail.

Edit:
**I have a full pane with all selvage on piece of the 75 cent Parcel Post Q-11. Denver used a number of full sheets at that time on multiple mailings. You will find one as just a used pane as well as many parts of other panes which have been broken down from a full selvage pane. Sadly, I do not expect to live long enough to be able to rate the mailing as I cannot find the postage rates anywhere for the year "8161," 1918 I have, but not 8191, yet.