Galerie

 > HISTORY OF DANZIG’S MAIL AND POSTAL CANCELLATIONS

Now some remarks to the following listings:

Column 1 shows the post offices in alphabetical order. The Roman numerals in column 2 indicate whether this post office is of the I, II or III class. The arabic numerals indicate which post office is the clearing house for this postal agency. This column allows us to draw conclusions as to the frequency or rarity of the individual cancellations. Column 3 lists the post offices that received new cancellations and gives the day on which these cancellations were used for the first time.

All cancellations, disregarding smaller details and variances

in diameter, can be grouped according to five types:
1. Small single-circle cancellation.
2. Single-circle cancellation with inscription still horizontal.
3. Single-circle cancellation with circle-segment under name.
4. Two-circle cancellation (Swiss cancel) with two cross-bars; the small circle segments on top and bottom are filled with vertical lines.
5. Like no. 4, but the segments are empty.

The new cancellation (Type 6) is a single-circle cancellation with two cross-bars. On top, there is usually a circle segment; below the bars it says horizontally “Freie Stadt” and below this in the curved section, “Danzig".

The airmail cancellations of Danzig 1, 5 and of Zoppot are two-ovals-cancellations with the two crossbars; the one of Langfuhr is an oval cancellation with two incomplete cross bars in the middle.

Columns 4 and 5 tell in what type the cancellation of the post office in question was made and gives the wording of the horizontal (Types 2 and 3) or curved (Types 4 and 5) inscriptions. In the case of Kalthof and Mielenz the given inscription is that of the new cancellation.

The large post offices have a number of cancellations which, in most cases, are differentiated by means of different letters of the alphabet. The type of cancellation given in Column 4 is that of the most frequently used cancellation, but, e.g. in the case of Danzig I, the old t-,  O-,  and w-cancellations belong to Type 4, in the case of Langfuhr the fine f-cancellation belongs to Type 5.

Most post offices still have old cancellations which are used at best when the normal cancel becomes unusable or in the case of large mass mailings.

I also present the date-table of all Danzig postage stamps as an aid for determining whether or not a given postage stamp can have this or that cancellation.

 

Danzig Report  Nr. 15 – July - August - September - 1977, Page 7.