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

I’m interested. Difficult to read is still better than no picture at all… :smiley:

I don’t have any information if (and how) that may be done in Germany, which could be because they don’t want anyone to get ideas how to trick the system…

In Germany, in addition to the dateless and locationless “Nachträglich entwertet” stamp that every mailman is supposed to have, cancellation with the full regular date stamp is permitted as well, in that case a large N (for nachträglich) must be written next to the date stamp. I’m not sure if that’s allowed for foreign stamps as well.

Finally I have dug out an “Ortswerbestempel” from Germany. It’s advertising for the town, and it’s a regular cancellation, all outgoig mail from the mailboxes in that town was cancelled with it. Note: As the cancellation is from 1972, it uses the old West German 4-digit postal code (East Germany also had a 4-digit postal code, but it was in the top of the cancellation). When after reunification (1990) the new 5-digit postal codes were introduced on 01-Jul-1993, those towns willing to pay for a new stamp got a new one (same or different design) with the 5-digit postal code. All Ortswerbestempel were discontinued with the introduction of the Briefzentrum (letter center), the initially 83 Briefzentren (now 82) were opened between 1994 and 1998. So depending on location these cancellations vanished at different times.


Top: Edenkoben (town name)
bottom: 6732 (postal code)
a bit higher: -9.6.72-13 (date: 09-Jun-1972, at 13:00 / 1 PM, the time is not time of cancellation but time of mail collection or office closure (some offices close over noon)
above that: advertisement, illustration of wine grapes and sun, text “staatl. anerk. Luftkurort”
left: “Wald u. Wein” (forest and wine)
right: “Sesselbahn” (chairlift)

Sometimes mistakes happen. Here the advertisement part (government advertisement to work together against COVID-19) was inserted upside-down in Briefzentrum 68:

here’s an early inkjet cancellation from the test phase, Briefzentrum 48 dated 29-Nov-2018 with two advertisement spaces - the final machines, e. g. at Briefzentrum 60, only use one space, but I don’t know if the second space is still technically possible.

Large envelope inkjet cancellation (never has advertisement): Briefzentrum 20, dated 26-Aug-2020-21

Inkjet cancellations are not error-prone… double cancellation, one regular orientation, the other upside-down, Briefzentrum 20, dated 23-Nov-2020-21, large envelope cancellation machine (I’ve never seen upside-down inkjet cancellation from the regular-size mail machine).

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sigh

I got this beautiful Canadian stamp today, but with the horrible grease-pencil cancel. Oh, Canada! :scream:

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By hand from the Czech Republic on a shaped card:

Carefully handstamped from Finland:

A different one from Finland:

Also, Moomin Museum from Finland:

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Oh, I often receive pen-canceled stamps from Europe:(

I have received today green cancellation from Lithuania and stamp Think green :smile:

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I went through my received postcards and took photos of stamps that got “Nachträglich entwertet” :


And I found this. Does anybody now something about the “Mailer’s Postmark Permit”?

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In the US, there is a process you can go through to be allowed to cancel your own mail with your own special rubber stamp. I believe you can design it yourself within certain parameters.

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Belgium

Bulgaria

Hong Kong

Hungary

Indonesia

Latvia

Luxembourg

Malaysia

New Zealand

Oman

Philippines

Poland

Singapore

Slovakia

South Korea

Spain

Ukraine (different from the one above)

I also have cards from Jordan and South Africa, but they don’t have any postmarks.

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Check out this one I got today! It’s not a commemorative. :slight_smile:

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I updated the index in the first post! Took me a while… It’s because I’m always offline for some reason :frowning: But thank you so much for your contributions! They all look so beautiful! (I’m too tired now to comment them individually haha!)

Omg what’s this? Also it says my birthday… December, 7th!!

@mere5oh Wow! You got a Santa Claus Indiana postmark - that thing is huge!
@ChristianJ https://santaclausind.org/2020-santa-claus-postmark/


Frohnleiten in Austria

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Do we need another topic for postal meters or are they welcome here as well?

Some of the cancellations on my received postcards:

USA

Denmark

Sweden

Slovenia

Croatia

Slovakia

Moldova

Hong Kong

Bulgaria

Iceland

Ukraine

Brazil

Oman

UAE

Luxembourg

Singapore

India

France

Finland (not quite sure if commemorative)

Åland Islands

Romania

Russia (not sure about the second one)

Japan

Macao

Switzerland

Australia (not sure if it’s a normal cancellation)

Malaysia

Spain

Guernsey

South Africa

Kazakhstan

Latvia (not sure what the second one is)

Estonia

And some postal meters

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I am more than happy to set up a flickr group for folks to post there, or, someone can set up one of those group wiki thingies! lol I learned in the sandbox, but have since forgotten how.)

A wiki post would be awesome, but somewhere at the top… else we need to search for it every time. To do so the poster needs to flag his post and ask to be turned into a wiki (unless the poster has TL3, then he can do it himself)

I think another topic for postal meters is an awesome idea since I have lots of nice commemorative postal meters:)

Oh, I found another hand postmark from NM, United States! It differs from the two existing ones in this topic by the cancellation lines beside the postmark.


It’s actually on the postcard US-6618339

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The postmark from Lismore NSW 2480 Australia is a permanent pictorial type which I use on nearly all my mail - the staff at Lismore post office let me apply it myself. The design was introduced in 1987.

There are currently almost 300 such pictorial postmarks in use around Australia.

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I saw that the Russian one said “международный детский центр”, which means “International Children’s Center” - that intrigued me! Below it says Артек (Artek), and below that is Республики Крым - Republic of Crimea. Anyhow, I searched and see that it was a former Young Pioneer camp and was still a vacation destination after that. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artek_(camp)

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