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A cancellation (or cancel for short; French: oblitération) is a postal marking applied on a postage stamp or postal stationery to deface the stamp and to prevent its reuse. Cancellations come in a huge variety of designs, shapes, sizes, and colors.
1928 King George V socked on the nose Ideally centered Austrian cancellation ca 1858. Bullseye, in philately, also called Socked on the nose (SON), refers to a cancellation of a postage stamp in which the postmark, typically a circle with the date and town name where mailed, has been applied centered on the stamp.
This destroyed the envelope. As a result, one cannot tell from a cut square what specific envelope it came from and, many times, the cancellation information. The manner in which the stamped envelope is cut before folding (that is, its knife) vanishes on a cut square. The envelope size disappears, too, with a cut square.
A design on the left side of the envelope (a "cachet") explains the event or anniversary being celebrated. Ideally the stamp or stamps affixed relate to the event. Cancels are obtained either from the location (e.g., Cape Canaveral, Anytown) or, in the case of the United States, from the Postal Service's Cancellation Services unit in Kansas City.
A used postage stamp with a pen cancel is usually worth much less than a stamp cancelled using a handstamp or machine. [5] In particular, the additional information from the handstamp is lost and the pen cancel may indicate fiscal (revenue) rather than postal use. Pen cancelling is, however, a common method of cancelling stamps used fiscally.
Similar to cancel to order is postmarked to order which occurs when the stamps are purchased at full value, placed on a piece of mail, and then cancelled by the clerk on request. The mail then is handed back to the customer instead of travelling through the post. [2] This is sometimes called favour cancellation, or hand-back. Some countries ...
A first day cover usually consists of an envelope, a postage stamp and a postmark with the date of the stamp's first day of issue thereon. [69] Starting in the mid-20th century some countries began assigning the first day of issue to a place associated with the subject of the stamp design, such as a specific town or city. [ 70 ]
In Great Britain, the first postmark employed for the cancellation of the then new adhesive postage stamps was the Maltese Cross, so named because of its shape and appearance. This was used in conjunction with a date stamp which was applied, usually to the rear of the letter, which denoted the date of posting.