POSTMARKS and CANCELLATIONS across the globe! [NOT commemorative ones]

Not the Messeturm? Up to now I have thought it shows the Messeturm.

Could theoretically be Messeturm, but that wouldn’t make any sense, as Messeturm is far away from Hauptwache, while Katharinenkirche is directly next to it, and when you look at Hauptwache from the side pictured in the stamp the spire is exactly in the place where it is on the cancellation. Sorry, couldn’t find a picture of exactly that perspective.

Not my country; but I got hand cancellation (I think) from Tasmania, Australia. I don’t know how much is it rare, as I never cared too much about them.


Maybe someone else can tell me?

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This is a typical Australian hand cancel, applied by a post office in the Hobart area. Being only a partial impression the post office name is missing.

Here are a few cancellations from Thailand (All of these are mine)

Machine-cancelled card from my nearest post office’s branch (Min Buri)

Machine-cancelled postcard from Ratchadamneon branch

My sloppy attempt at hand-cancelling a card (asked for the stamp from the postal souvenirs counter)

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Here are some more hand-cancelled stamps for you to look at! I think we should rename this topic to “Your favourite postmarks” instead of “Your country’s postmarks”, so that we can all share what we receive! What do you think?


This is actually my first card from Ukraine! And I’m really happy about it. It looks so neat!

I did! But now, thinking back, I’m sooo disappointed! She took out the stamp and made two attempts (she said that you can see the Fernsehturm, but tbh the central part of the cancellation was completely unintelligible!). I should’ve taken a picture!! But, at the time, I was too scared to ask: the woman at the counter sees me so often and I feel like she doesn’t really like me aha! Or maybe it’s just her smileless approach that intimidates me.

The one in Berlin too! It’s laughably small… German stamps are beautiful, so I wonder why it doesn’t have this “institutionalised” philatelic culture. Italy, with its ugly af stamps (I’ll keep repeating it ad nauseam haha) has a way more important “philatelic offices”. Look at the one in Turin:

Wow! I’ve never received machine-cancelled mail from Thailand. It’s always handstamps (and highly illegible ones as well… the one in your last picture is probably the best I’ve seen!).

EDIT: Everyone, check my first post! I added a little index, so that no cancellation gets lost!

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It’s very likely that only domestic mail goes through machines. International mail is handled manually all the way.

I’m in favor! I haven’t added anything else because everyone else was talking knowledgeably about their own country’s cancellations (which I have learned a lot from), and I’m just a :clown_face: who likes to look at them but doesn’t know anything about anything. :rofl:

I’m definitely in favor, too. How about “Postmarks and cancellations across the globe [NOT commemorative ones]”? That opens it up to everyone who has a cancellation to share.

I love your index! Thank you very much, it’s a great idea!

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Here is a Portuguese hand cancellation. The stamps seems to be a bit damaged, I have it with several dates, all show the slight sents in the outer circle. The number at the bottom is the first part of the 4+3 Portuguese postal code, the date follows the ISO format: 2020 10 13 is 13-Oct-2020.

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Here’s some rare country cancellations I’ve received:

San Marino

Senegal

Iraq

Vietnam

Uruguay

And then a pretty one I received recently from Japan

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Yeaaahh!! I was waiting for your posts… If I’m not mistaken, you’ve only sent the countries starting with the letters A and B, right? I kept waiting for more pictures from you, but you never sent them :sweat_smile: I’m not knowledgeable either, I just find looking at them to be super satisfying.

Yeah, Portugal is one of the few Western European nations that still issue handstamps. It’s visibly damaged actually, but at least the text is very legible. I didn’t know that the “Asian” way of writing dates could be found on European stamps too! But, as you wrote, it’s the official ISO format. We had it right the whole time then :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Oh my God, thank you so much for your valuable contribution! I love the colours in the Iraqi postmarks (there are two black ones and a coloured one, plus two square stamps! omg!! could you pleeease upload HD images of all those postmarks? I’ll then manage to find an Arabic speaker who can translate everything… I’m just too curious to see where this card has been… I’ve never seen this many stamps on the same postcard!)

Regarding the Japanese postmarks, can anyone tell us whether they are commemorative or not? The flower-shaped one clearly is, but what about the round one? It still doesn’t look like the ordinary cancellation stamps from the country.

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Well, I kind of looked through A and B and then haphazardly at a couple from China. :slight_smile: But I went back and looked a bit more, these are some I found that looked interesting so far.

Canada - not a lot of them get cancelled. (I also don’t have any scratched through with a pen although I know that seems to be common.)

Clear one from Switzerland, kind of perfectly placed!

And another one from Switzerland, light but I liked the two-part design

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Yes, but I’ll need a few days. :wink:

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The first time I saw the ISO date format on postal cancellations, it was in Scandinavia (Sweden I think). I checked, Sweden and Lithuania use ISO format, Norway, Finland and Latvia not (sorry, I don’t have Danish and Estonian cancellations handy). I also have a cancellation from Namibia (previously South-West Africa) with ISO date. I need to find time to make more scans…

The ISO format has the benefit that dates noted in it automatically sort in the correct order on computers. That was the reason for making this format the ISO standard.

Older German machine cancellation preceding the instroduction of Briefzentrum (in the 1990s). It basically looks the same, but instead of Briefzentrum it shows the town name in the top and the postal code in the bottom, exactly the same as in the hand cancellations from post offices.

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I got a wonderful Octoberfest cancellation from last year!

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Oh sorry, it is commemorative, right? Should I delete it?

Leave it @Martin-CZE it looks good

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The first type of postmark can be obtained at any post office if the clerk is in a good mood.
When I asked at my post office : “Why would you need it ? Your letter will be postmarked at the sorting center.” :unamused: Which brings us to…

The second one which is the regular stamp at Swiss sorting centers, always with the 2 parts.
Unfortunately it is rarely that legible.

I have a question. In some Swiss towns, if you drop mail in a regular mailbox, it’ll get a special-regular postmark like this one :

Would it be considered a normal or commemorative postmark ?

https://www.poststempel-graubuenden.ch/
Lots of amazing infos about Graubünden postmarks there !

Edit : By the way, while going through my Swiss postcards, I also noticed an amusing postmark !
02.02.20 - 20
Oh, a nice palindrome (02.02.20(20)) but no, even more fantastic. It was postmarked at 20:00 ! :laughing:

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The Postmark is from the Dachstein in Austria. I hope you like it. It is devalued in the city Graz.

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