CAN YOU TRUST VICTORIAN POST OFFICE CANCELLATIONS ?
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 2:38 pm
A lot of controversy has been made regarding the early trial perforations conducted by Henry Archer, especially governmental trial perforations, the like of which was produced before the 28th of January 1854 with stamps on cover which are not thought to exist using die 1 alphabet ll printings.
Should you come across a cover bearing an earlier date than this, then one could be fooled by someone changing the stamp that was originally on the cover and replacing it with a bogus one to suit their needs.
Having said that, I have come across two covers with perforation 16 die 1 alphabet 2 one being posted in Burnley (Lancashire) and one posted in Bury (Lancashire) whereby the cancellation dates are the 1st of July 1853 and the 6th of December 1853 respectively. I am not claiming that these are governmental trial perforations, due to the fact there is every possibility that the postal worker at the time may have inserted a wrong date slug into the cancelling stamp by mistake, however, finding one might have been a mistake, but to find two of a similar period is quite remarkable.
I forwarded various scans of the two covers to Howard Hughes on the 24⁸/21, and in turn he forwarded them to Ray Simpson to check out the perforations, he confirmed that they were unlikely to have been perforated by the Archer machine. This was the comment made by Ray at the time >
"I suspect that these are genuine SG 17s that do not belong to these 1853 covers but have been substituted for the imperforate stamps that were there originally. The first step is to get the stamps plated. That should settle the question. If necessary, the postmarks and the tying will need closer examination."
Howard then forwarded the scans to Michael Williams for plating purposes.
These were Mike's findings >
"I've had a good look at these now. RE is not too difficult, as the large gap between RE and SE, along with the 'in-line rather than stepped' alignment of the two impressions, led me to Plate 185 - it is one of only a handful of C1 plates that are aligned straight like this. I attach a scan of the relevant area from the Imp sheet.
SC is a bit trickier, but I think this is also Plate 185, The attached scan includes this stamp too. Again, note the 'in-line' alignment and the mouth of the C pointing slightly upwards. The weakness profile of both sides of TC also fit. The orange shade tells me that Plate 185 is well in the frame, and, because of some large horizontal gaps, as on RE-SE, throughout the sheet it is more commonly found mis-perforated like this, with the check letters at the top, so that fits too.
So, I think both are Plate 185. The December date is almost certainly an error for 1854 and the July date an error for 1855, assuming that the date plugs are the only mistakes! The plate was put to press in July 1854, so the latter date cannot be 1854 if the July 1 is correct."
It would now appear that I have 2 covers with perforation 16 die1 alph2 with stamps attached that was printed in 1854 and cancelled in 1853.
They may not be Archer or Governmental trial perforations, but these two covers are quite unique, as they both appear to have incorrect date strikes which in turn makes them a rarity. Can you trust a date strike in future ? WM
Should you come across a cover bearing an earlier date than this, then one could be fooled by someone changing the stamp that was originally on the cover and replacing it with a bogus one to suit their needs.
Having said that, I have come across two covers with perforation 16 die 1 alphabet 2 one being posted in Burnley (Lancashire) and one posted in Bury (Lancashire) whereby the cancellation dates are the 1st of July 1853 and the 6th of December 1853 respectively. I am not claiming that these are governmental trial perforations, due to the fact there is every possibility that the postal worker at the time may have inserted a wrong date slug into the cancelling stamp by mistake, however, finding one might have been a mistake, but to find two of a similar period is quite remarkable.
I forwarded various scans of the two covers to Howard Hughes on the 24⁸/21, and in turn he forwarded them to Ray Simpson to check out the perforations, he confirmed that they were unlikely to have been perforated by the Archer machine. This was the comment made by Ray at the time >
"I suspect that these are genuine SG 17s that do not belong to these 1853 covers but have been substituted for the imperforate stamps that were there originally. The first step is to get the stamps plated. That should settle the question. If necessary, the postmarks and the tying will need closer examination."
Howard then forwarded the scans to Michael Williams for plating purposes.
These were Mike's findings >
"I've had a good look at these now. RE is not too difficult, as the large gap between RE and SE, along with the 'in-line rather than stepped' alignment of the two impressions, led me to Plate 185 - it is one of only a handful of C1 plates that are aligned straight like this. I attach a scan of the relevant area from the Imp sheet.
SC is a bit trickier, but I think this is also Plate 185, The attached scan includes this stamp too. Again, note the 'in-line' alignment and the mouth of the C pointing slightly upwards. The weakness profile of both sides of TC also fit. The orange shade tells me that Plate 185 is well in the frame, and, because of some large horizontal gaps, as on RE-SE, throughout the sheet it is more commonly found mis-perforated like this, with the check letters at the top, so that fits too.
So, I think both are Plate 185. The December date is almost certainly an error for 1854 and the July date an error for 1855, assuming that the date plugs are the only mistakes! The plate was put to press in July 1854, so the latter date cannot be 1854 if the July 1 is correct."
It would now appear that I have 2 covers with perforation 16 die1 alph2 with stamps attached that was printed in 1854 and cancelled in 1853.
They may not be Archer or Governmental trial perforations, but these two covers are quite unique, as they both appear to have incorrect date strikes which in turn makes them a rarity. Can you trust a date strike in future ? WM