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(29 April 2020) Collecting made-to-order needs of the moment unusual instructive handstamps must be fun and quite challenging. This Jamaica cover with Hotel Titchfield flag-flying flap to San Antonio, Texas travelled uncancelled until it reached Pasadena, California on MR 9 1912 and the postmaster felt obliged to tell the eventual recipient that his cover was trapped inside a circular during transit. A nice item to include in an Arms display. The Anguilla Valley postmaster, in 1996, before any actual transit to Basseterre, has gone to extraordinary length with a mind-boggling message that the sender’s letter is certified to have been received in good condition at his post office! Bad condition yes, but good condition?
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(28 April 2020) During the Napoleonic wars correspondence was almost exclusively sent unpaid in duplicate or triplicate by different vessels in the hope that one entire would reach its destination. The contents of each incoming or outgoing letter were entered into Copy Books keeping a complete record of transmissions should loss occur. After the war mail continued to be sent mostly unpaid but with confidence growing in the safety of the seas and some writers using courtesy prepayment the Crowned Circle PAID AT handstamp was introduced having been proofed at the GPO, London on JA 30 1852. Prepayment to foreign ports was already established. Over the period JU 4 1852 to JU 6 1866 some 59 covers are currently recorded with the PAID AT ST. VINCENT mark showing varying uses. The strikes are always in red ink with the exception of the unique black strike on cover to Paris dated AU 10 1858. Examples on Perkins Bacon “loose” stamp are rarely found and their use, as such, has no ready explanation. The illustrated example on 1877 QV 6d pale green P.11½ to 12½ x 15 sideways star wmk (SG.23 , invoiced DE 30 1876, Ex Becker collection) shows that the instrument survived the Fire at the Kingstown Post Office on October 29 1866.
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(28 April 2020) Two spectacular covers dated MY 8 1871 and NO 7 1874 showing the two distinctly different accountancy handstamps. On the earlier cover the accountancy triplex was used as a "killer" on the 8c stamp, but as it could not be applied twice the 2c stamp is tied by black "A03".
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The “Circle of Dots”, as described in the PML handbook Page 129, is only known struck in black ink and only found on the 1880 QV 1d olive-green (SG.29, 60,000 stamps invoiced May 13 1880). Of the 12 copies known to me the key stamp to assist in establishing where this mark was applied is the Ex Messenger copy overstruck black “CA” (at Calliaqua) dated JY 30 81. Only 4 offices were using the black ink pad at this time being Barrouallie, Calliaqua, Kingstown, and Mesopotamia. A chart has been prepared to show the nearest known strikes either side of the JY 30 81 date as gleaned from either “loose” dated stamps or covers. Barrouallie had use of both vertical “A10” and “BAR” datestamp, the Calliaqua “CA” datestamp is so commonly applied on SG.29 that a single dated strike effectively rules out its use at that office, Kingstown had use of horizontal “A10”, GB/40c, “K” datestamp, ST. VINCENT cds, which leaves by elimination Mesopotamia as the most likely candidate. The chart shows no dated strikes for Mesopotamia period JA 12 81 to SP 7 82 (21 months) and Peter Jaffe in a Stamp Collecting magazine 18 November 1950 article (no copy of same retained) reported that there was no Postmaster at Mesopotomia at DE 23 80. Only four strikes of black “MES” are recorded after that date on SG.29 being xx JA 81, 9 JA 81, JA 10 81, JA 12 81 and then comes the “unknown period” until SP 7 82. Mail from the village of Mesopotamia would have continued and initial copies may have been “killed” in manuscript before it was thought to apply the wafer seal impressions. The 9th illustration shows perhaps an early combination. Activity at the other black ink offices is shown for the Mesopotamia unknown period JA 12 81 to SP 7 82.
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Although I have massively long text files of cancels I have handled, or seen, I do not have any postmark collections of my own. Written details of St. Vincent abbreviated and extended cds, with their incorporated dates and differing coloured inks in places are easy to understand, but even with years of experience I often stumble when it comes to the commonest obliterators on common stamps in my trying to remember just how common, or how scarce, they actually are. As a consequence I have recently undertaken trying to get an illustration of every different St. Vincent possibility on every different issue up to the end of KGV. The attached page for the PB QV 1d drab shows how far I have currently reached, and the item which is probably less common than all the others is the strike of the black vertical "A10" - which I would have overlooked thinking it much commoner!!
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Illustrated are all the combinations currently known to me on these DLR Perf. 12 QV 4d blues Crown CA wmk. The latest discovery is the vertical red "A10" applied Georgetown, not the best of strikes but currently unique.
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(Updated 28 April 2020) Not enough covers have survived to pin-point with accuracy when this rare red inked small “A07” on stained perfs. QV 1d lilac CC wmk P.14 (SG.5) was struck, but records may help in that a red inked DOMINICA 20½mm cds dated FE 21 83 on "loose" stamp QV 4d blue (SG.7) was offered almost precisely 100 years later in the 1983 BWISC auction lot 76 which Simon Goldblatt will without doubt remember describing. A return to black ink 6 days later is recorded on "loose" stamp QV 2½d red-brown Crown CC INVERTED wmk (SG.6w) dated no code/FE 27 83, and 4 days later also on QV 2½d red-brown (SG.6) but with NORMAL Crown CC wmk.
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