Article About Doremus Machine Cancels, From the Machine Cancel Forum

Article About Doremus Machine Cancels
[From the Machine Cancel Forum]

This article originally appeared in the Machine Cancel Forum, which is published quarterly for members of the Machine Cancel Society. Publication rights are reserved; articles may be reprinted if the author and MACHINE CANCEL FORUM are credited. Except for reports by officers of the Society, opinions expressed in FORUM are those of the article's author, and not those of the Machine Cancel Society.

DOREMUS POSTAL MARKINGS

by Nick D'Ercole

The photocopies [in the original article] were taken out of the Doremus Encyclopedia.

For the first time in my column and the first time I can remember, I actually have two items to subtract from your total Doremus varieties! The items I am referring to are the eight bar experimental cancels from Boston, Mass & Washington, D.C. shown above. Frederick Langford reported the following to me:

"It is OK with me for you to report in FORUM that I've concluded that the Boston & Washington, D.C. cancels are not of a machine of the Doremus patent design, but are another kind of experimental American Company machine. I have determined this from the distributed Machine Cancel Hearings transcript."

So subtract those two from you Doremus totals. I know those of you like myself may be relieved we do not have to try to find one of these to add to our Doremus collections!

Nothing unusual about the poor impression of a Type A Received from Brunswick, Me., except for the date.....01/25/00! I picked this item up at the Boxborough Show in April. (This is the earliest dated Doremus cancel that I own). All of us know that the earliest known Doremus cancel in existence is December 30, 1899 used in Bayonne, New Jersey, but other than that example little is know about any other early Doremus cancels. Besides the one known copy from Bayonne, does anyone have a Doremus cancel dated earlier than 1/25/00? If so, send me a copy and I will put it in my next column!

UNLISTED:

COLLINS, MISS. TYPE CD 02/05/07 B.Payne

Hats off to another great find by Bob Payne. To my knowledge this is first new Hybrid discovered since the publishing of the second edition of the Doremus Encyclopedia!!! If you notice that Collins, Miss. is listed to have used a Type E machine from 1909-10. Does this mean that there could be a Type D or C out there??? Probably not, but keep your eyes open!

REVISED LISTINGS:

U.S. POSTAL STA., PARIS EXP'N TYPE A 06/18/00 N.D'Ercole

The EKU for Paris Expo. is listed in the Doremus Encyclopedia as being June 20th. It also states that "evidence exists the Doremus machine was used a couple days earlier than collectors report cancels." BINGO...this card is two days (or a 'couple' of days) earlier at June 18th!! The date is hard to read in this copy, but it is definitely the 18th. I have been looking for one of these for some time and what better a way to find one then one with the earliest known date!

DOREMUS DISCOVERY ZONE:

It has often been said that it is difficult to find a Doremus cancel used on an advertising cover. After several years of collecting Doremus cancels.....I agree!! That is why I thought this advertising cover from Oakland, Maryland was very nice. If you have a Doremus cancel used on an advertising cover, I would sure like to see it!!