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Table of Contents

All Document Indexes	Columbia, Blown Sky-High
Introduction	Valley Forge
A Triple Philatelic Cover	The Ubiquitous HD2
From the Beginning, Reporting Machine Cancel Jewels	Christmas 1974 Precancel Self Adhesive on Cover, by A J Savakis
Flags in Canceling Devices (1920-1929), The West's Last Great Train Robbery	DVD in Dial Explained
Non Postal Use of Machine, RECEIVED IN DAILY MAIL GROUP

From the Beginning, Reporting Machine Cancel Jewels

By A J Savakis

About a year and a half ago, I began a bicentennial project for my local stamp show. It would be a bicentennial album of Warren, Ohio, postal history cancels from stampless to machine cancels. The nineteenth century was relatively easy, as an acquaintance, Gordon Wean, had assembled a 19th century exhibit of Warren material, and at Garfield-Perry won a 1990 Vermeil. He gave me a photocopy of that exhibit and his generous permission to publish his findings and covers. With that information, and information from books and other material, a good history of the 19th century was publishable in the bicentennial album.

Now the 20th century was different. The shift in emphasis on postal history was to machine cancels. The previously published information concerned only the type of machine, and did not have date of use of any slogans. The literature also ended in mid-century, and the very identity of the facer-canceller used in Warren from December 1971 to May 1977 was an open question. The 20th century part of the album was a compilation of material that was gathered and organized. If it was not found, physically, in a local collection or reported by a sympathetic collector outside the area, it could not be reported in the bicentennial album.

It is not hard to imagine missing a cancel or slogan. Indeed, a cancel could be very common, but just because it was missing from the collections used to report examples for the bicentennial album, it goes unreported.

Each machine cancel, however common or uncommon, is a jewel begging to be found and reported. It is part of a crown, a story, waiting to be revealed.

I was certainly not surprised when someone pointed out a hand rolling device of a box, repeating WARREN, / OHIO, used on a registered cover.

Hand Roller (Repeater) Cancel

I have been unable to identify the manufacturer, and comments from readers are appreciated. In my literature files I have an article by Richard B. Graham ( Linn's Stamp News, 14 August 1995 at pages 32-33) picturing various roller cancels, including a German-made roller called in use at Santa Barbara, California, and a Columbia Jiffy roller cancel. A follow-up article by Graham ( Linn's Stamp News, 29 May 1995, at pages 44-45) identified the Hanley roller. These roller cancels are quite different than the one featured in the figure above.

How simple it would be if we could just go to a record book, pick out a list of assigned machines and postal devices, and print out a list of usage by city and state for each machine! You can participate in the creation of just such a record by helping out in Project 2000. Readers are asked to review the 1999 freebie publication for details.

A treasure map of sorts is the published list of patent devices by Bart Billings with contributing editors Robert Payne, Reg Morris, Richard Small, and Sam Ockun, found in A HANDBOOK OF U S POSTAL MARKINGS IMPRESSED BY MACHINES (Machine Cancel Society, Revision 1 July 1992). The patent information, together with its date and location of its inventor, help identify postmarks once found and even predict postmarks not yet found. But still no magic bullet that can list them all by city, state, and manufacturer.

But thanks to the published work of Frederick Langford, there is already a magic bullet for collectors of flag cancellations. Frederick Langford, publisher of the Flag Cancel Encyclopedia, had access to postal records that are no longer available for us in the 1990's. Listing the assignment of machines, he was able to list city and state of usage for postmarks that are not known to exist. A list of 'MISSING TOWNS' was begun, listing rare flag cancellations that are known only in postal records and examples are unknown.

It is therefore with great pleasure that the following annoucement is made by Bart Billings, President of the Machine Cancel Society:

"In July 1992 there were about 74 towns on the 'missing' list. At that time there was only one 'missing town' from Minnesota. Now that has changed, because Tom Reiersgord may have found the missing East Grand Forks, type A14.

The Society will be examining the specimen found to assure it is a bona fide cancel, and will advise Society members in the next Forum published after verification.

We should all keep a close eye on new flags we acquire, and advise of new early or late dates, as well as other finds like the one Tom found. Please make your reports to Bill Barlow, at 449 15th Street Suite 410; Oakland CA 94612."

East Grand Forks Cancel

Tom Reiersgord's find is pictured above. The MISSING TOWN LIST is reproduced on page 65 of the Handbook referred to previously. If you have the first edition of the Handbook, you will find it on page 7.

Readers might be interested in learning how it was found. It was in a small batch of post cards at an antique mall. The dial is not well struck, and at first glance it looks like GRAND FORKS. But if you look closely, you can see AST of the word EAST. Tom wrote that he lives near East Grand Forks, and it is a sizable community. If the machine was there, examples should be plentiful. Tom surmises from the date on the post card (December 21), that the machine was installed only for the Christmas rush, to handle the extra volume of mail during the Christmas season. The poor impression by the machine may explain why it was not there very long.

Even though the Third Edition of FLAG CANCEL ENCYCLOPEDIA dates back to 1976, its listings have been prophetic and the discovery of this 'missing' town is a credit to its author and to those who searched for its towns.

There are of course finds to be made outside the Encyclopedia. The ANNISTON ALA RURAL FREE DELIVERY flag, reported in the October 1996 Machine Cancel Forum, and the Cincinnati 19th century flag finds are but a few examples of the so called new flags.

Anniston Alabama Rural Free Delivery Machine

Congratulations to Tom Reiersgord for what is hopefully a confirmed flag from East Grand Forks, to Frederick Langford for the listing, and to the pioneers of flag cancel collecting and machine cancel collecting who made this discovery possible!

Question: If you have a flag cancel that looks different than other examples, when do you declare it a new flag?

Readers may wish to review some basics reviewed in the July 1996 Forum at pages 1739- 1742 and a quiz on matching transferred flag dies in the July 1998 Forum on pages 2306-08.

Ron Andis of R#2 Box 202E, Bloomfield IN 47424, e-mail rjandis@viaduct.custom.net at the COLOPEX99 Annual General Meeting had a very interesting series of flag cancels used in SAINT PETERSBURG, FLA in 1911. Look carefully at the center, MAR 21, example. Find the left hand column of horizontal stars, which from the top are usually referred to as stars 1, 2 and 3. Note that star 1 is to the left of star 2 in the top and bottom example, but that star 2 is to the left of star 2 in the middle example. Is this a new flag?

Saint Petersburg Cancels

It was not a unanimous decision of those present at the board meeting, but the majority felt it was a distorted impression by the machine and not a new flag die. Two lines of thought as to why:

• (1) Look where the halyard attaches to the staff. On all three examples it is in the same place. Look carefully at the middle example. There is a jump, where the bottom line of the union jumps over the halyard.
• (2) Look at the diagonal lines of stars instead of the horizontal columns. They all align the same, in all three examples. Note in particular stars 1, 2, 4, and 6.

Finding another example like the middle flag would help support that it is new. But for right now, the majority of flag cancel collectors at the meeting indicated that it was a printing variety.

I must say that the group very much enjoyed the flag cancel exercise provided by Ron Andis at the June COLOPEX'99 meeting.

New discoveries are always exciting, but sometimes new is replaced by newer even before the new can be published. Got that? Well, let me explain. With the Andrew Buckland collection being auctioned in Forum, it caused me to go through some old correspondence. I came across a note from Andy dated May 9, 1996. It starts that he was very excited to find a HAMPDEN, SAINT CLOUD, MINN. Hamden postmark on a postal card, dated MAR 25, 1902. That would make it a new Earliest Known Usage (EKU) for that machine. He had even photocopied it and written it up. But alas, Bob Patkin just found an earlier example dated March 21. Andy's comment and example are in the image below.

St. Cloud Hampden Cancel

The note was too amusing to toss away. Andy's material continues to be auctioned in Forum, and your attention is requested to the back of this issue to review the material.

Andy passed away just before the 1997 Annual General Meeting, and in his notes to me indicated that he would be hand delivering the July 1997 auction to me. In it was a very interesting item, a Universal 'unlisted', a machine used at NEWPORT NEWS, VA. / ALEXANDER BR. Dated DEC 23, 1918.

The item is pictured below with some of Andy's notes.

Alexander Branch Universal Military Cancel

Bob Payne, Ed Thomas, and Bob Swanson assisted Andy in identifying this postmark as not only a new Universal machine, but a military one as well.

Ed Thomas notes to me read, "Another new item has appeared on the horizon. In fact, I believe it is one of the lots in the current society auction. [Actually, there was no July 1997 auction due to Andy's passing away.] According to Bob Swanson, it is a military machine cancel for a Virginia training camp post office which existed less than a year. Alexander Branch trained stevedores and in the then segregated army, it was an all black unit. Illiteracy rates among Southern blacks was much greater than among whites and in the 1890's (the parents of the War War I soldiers), it averaged 60% throughout the South. As a result, this branch probably saw much less mail than the average."

Bob Swanson did research, and discovered official information on the camp. A page from the Army "Order of Battle" book appears below.

Camp Alexander Information

Bob Swanson noted that the mail from this unit normally went by way of Camp Hill (Newport News, Hill Branch, and had a flag cancel).

Relying on Bill Helbock's Postmarks on Postcards, he notes that Alexander Post Office Branch was only open from September 1, 1918, to July 31, 1919.

It was an interesting discovery, a jewel by my noting. Its announcement being unfortunately delayed due to Andy's untimely demise.

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12/16/24, 3:13 PM