Here I am again, with another chapter of my collection. One of my favourites : the British postmarks. I will start with some pictures, because you can write more than one book on this topic.
I have several albums with "location"-obliterations. One could sort them on date, but I have sorted them on county, and then on location. Other albums contain "slogans", wartime and military obliterations, first day obliterations (most of them FDC's, but also stamps used on the first day) and some miscellaneous. This one is from Beccles, Suffolk, East England.
It is always fun when you have pictures (hence I love postcards) from the place your stamp is used. Locating it on the map is even more fun. And then we have the final question : when is it used ? This is a numeral obliteration. Sometimes you have a duplex, a numeral with on the left side a round stamp with placename, date and time. But on the postal stamp, you can not have both (sometimes partial).
First investigation is to know in what period the postal stamp was valid. Second is to research during what period the obliteration was used. Combinig both you have a window between two dates.
The post offices, in the past, had stampbooks. A stampbook is a register that contains a mark of each handstamp with the date of the first use and the date when it was put out of use. It happens that digitalised copies of these books are online, but that is very rare.
May 5th : I was noticed today that the cancellation is NOT Beccles, Suffolk. It is a 159 from Glasgow, Scotland. (Thanks Ian !!! )
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