This is die I of this design which as far as I can see wasn't used for post office post cards so will have been cut from a 1901 stamped to order post card.
Yes, certainly. In Britain "Stamped to Order" postal stationery consists of items where the paper or card for the stationery is stamped by the Post Office (i.e. has the postage stamp(s) printed) following specific regulations at the request of private persons or organisations.
The old Higgins and Gage catalogue calls this "Printed to Private Order" so I guess that is the standard term in the US.
The stamp dies that were used for this were often different from the ones used for Post Office issues and so can be identified even when the stamps have been cut out from the postal stationery.
This half-penny design used three very similar dies. These can be distinguished by the shape of the small triangles at the top (above "A" of "HALF" and the second "N" of "PENNY") and the presence or absence of a small dot corresponding to the top of additional partial circular ornaments above the "L" of "HALF" and the first "N" of "PENNY".
Die I (here) does not have the small dot and was used in brown for Post Office post cards in issues from 1878 to 1883. Dies II and III were used for similar cards with later brown stamps.
Die I was used again in blue-green in 1901 but only for Stamped to Order items.
I hope this helps.
I recommend Collect British Postal Stationery by Alan Huggins and Colin Baker as a very useful reference for British postal stationery.
Thanks for showing that, I've never seen one before. Altho I don't collect foreign postal stationary,
I still find them fascinating to see in the collections of others.
It probably is not worth much as close trimmed, but still very worth giving it a place in your collection.
A nice piece of postal history.
Here is one of mine that I know nothing about and would welcome a guestimate of it's value, so I
can decide it I want to keep.
My guess is a letter sheet. The text in upper left probably says: "bla bla bla folded as a letter"
I think I have three of them and know next to nothing about them.
@ nigelc;
I would like to know the issue date and period of use, and how they were to be sold and used.
Why have I never seen any of these before? Does anyone else have any similar or canceled ones?
Do you have any idea of it's value, I only have Scott's and on old Stanley Gibbons general
British Colonies 1979.
Thanks in advance and thank you rwillis29 for starting this fascinating and informative thread.
This is cut from a newspaper wrapper. The design of the tall stamp was intended to make it it easier to be postmarked once it had been sealed around a folded newspaper.
This one is from 1883. The catalogue value for the complete wrapper is £3.00 (mint or used) but there's not much demand for British cut-outs.
A similar stamp was used on letter sheets as you suggest but the text at the top makes it clear that this is from a wrapper.
There were originally five lines of text on this wrapper warning that it should only be used for sending newspapers. The last sentence read, "If this rule be infringed, this packet will be charged as a letter."
I just looked at your link, and thanks for providing that. Does the '946' in the striped oval
represent that post office? If it does then if I see a number cancel like that then it would
have been from Middlesbrough?
Also I was told by someone years ago that there was a chart of those number codes that
gave the village or towns that the piece was from. Is that correct? Just a world wide collector
and a bit of an Anglophile, and learning English postal history. Thank you in advance.
