Handstamp Identifiers - A Bathroom Tale
Jun 10, 2014 16:11:59 GMT -5
Admin Bear, Gordon Lee, and 3 more like this
Post by rayb on Jun 10, 2014 16:11:59 GMT -5
I am aware that I probably have a reputation for dealing in obscurities. But every now and again I miss some general point so blindingly obvious that it embarrasses me. I suspect that when I have told this story, 90% of you will say, 'Derrrr! I've known that since I first started collecting.' But for the benefit of the 10% (and I certainly don't expect you to identify yourselves 
) here goes:
Let's start with a very typical used stamp. Of course I being Me this is Yugoslavian, but any of you whose collection does not comprise only CTOs will have many like it from wherever you collect. It contains three identification marks:
Beograd - the town
1 - the Post Office
13 - the cancel identification.
I obviously understand the need to identify the town and PO – for instance it allows the PO authorities to check back for the causes of delays. But why the compulsion to identify each individual handstamp in the Office? If you had put a gun to my head and demanded an explanation I suppose I would have speculated that it was a right of passage for new postal workers who had successfully completed their gruelling Stamp Cancelling course, to be presented with their Very Own Cancel, which they could cherish and polish, and identify instantly as theirs were it to be pinched by a colleague careless enough to have lost his own.
I might even have come up with the idea that it would allow postal authorities to trace back a package to the worker who processed it. But I would have been hard pressed to come up with a concrete example of a situation where they would want/need to.
I was lying reading in the bath tonight. (Those of you who insist on showers are doomed to perpetual ignorance since the water will inevitably soak the page of the book before you can read it.) I was reading 'All About Stamps' by the British philatelist Fred Melville published just before the start of WW1 (Ok, I'm a little behind with my reading, but I'll catch up someday. :-S) A short paragraph in his chapter on postmarks ripped the scales from my eyes.
In the beginning of the Stamp Era, in Britain, there were no cancel identifiers. Indeed, the Maltese Cross cancellation did not even explicitly identify the city where it was used, although some are traceable. Noone saw a need. But what quickly emerged was that the ink used for the cancels was not very secure. People began to remove the cancel mark from used stamps with chemicals, or even by simple hard washing.
Of course, the postal authorities saw every reused stamp as a loss of revenue. Postal workers at the despatcing office were supposed to identify and extract such things, but often they didn't. This could be:
a) deliberate, letting their own cleaned up mail through;
b) deliberate, letting other people's through in return for a backhander;
c) accidental.
If a 'dodgy' stamp was spotted by the receiving office clerks or postmen on their beat, the letter could be charged postage due. If it contained a return address, the sender could be questioned. But in any PO with more than one worker there was no way to check which person had let it through. Hence the introduction of individual identification - which allowed individual clerks to be questioned, warned to be more alert, or if culpable, sacked. This spread throughout the world and persisted long after cleaning stamps had ceased to be a major issue.
) here goes:Let's start with a very typical used stamp. Of course I being Me this is Yugoslavian, but any of you whose collection does not comprise only CTOs will have many like it from wherever you collect. It contains three identification marks:
Beograd - the town
1 - the Post Office
13 - the cancel identification.
I obviously understand the need to identify the town and PO – for instance it allows the PO authorities to check back for the causes of delays. But why the compulsion to identify each individual handstamp in the Office? If you had put a gun to my head and demanded an explanation I suppose I would have speculated that it was a right of passage for new postal workers who had successfully completed their gruelling Stamp Cancelling course, to be presented with their Very Own Cancel, which they could cherish and polish, and identify instantly as theirs were it to be pinched by a colleague careless enough to have lost his own.
I might even have come up with the idea that it would allow postal authorities to trace back a package to the worker who processed it. But I would have been hard pressed to come up with a concrete example of a situation where they would want/need to.
I was lying reading in the bath tonight. (Those of you who insist on showers are doomed to perpetual ignorance since the water will inevitably soak the page of the book before you can read it.) I was reading 'All About Stamps' by the British philatelist Fred Melville published just before the start of WW1 (Ok, I'm a little behind with my reading, but I'll catch up someday. :-S) A short paragraph in his chapter on postmarks ripped the scales from my eyes.
In the beginning of the Stamp Era, in Britain, there were no cancel identifiers. Indeed, the Maltese Cross cancellation did not even explicitly identify the city where it was used, although some are traceable. Noone saw a need. But what quickly emerged was that the ink used for the cancels was not very secure. People began to remove the cancel mark from used stamps with chemicals, or even by simple hard washing.
Of course, the postal authorities saw every reused stamp as a loss of revenue. Postal workers at the despatcing office were supposed to identify and extract such things, but often they didn't. This could be:
a) deliberate, letting their own cleaned up mail through;
b) deliberate, letting other people's through in return for a backhander;
c) accidental.
If a 'dodgy' stamp was spotted by the receiving office clerks or postmen on their beat, the letter could be charged postage due. If it contained a return address, the sender could be questioned. But in any PO with more than one worker there was no way to check which person had let it through. Hence the introduction of individual identification - which allowed individual clerks to be questioned, warned to be more alert, or if culpable, sacked. This spread throughout the world and persisted long after cleaning stamps had ceased to be a major issue.
