"T" date-stamps used for registered mail at Cantonment post offices
The attached short report describes an accumulation of 300+ cancellations on piece from Middelburg, Potchefstroom and Standerton cantonments, dating from October 1904 to December 1905. They appear to come from registered packages. Interestingly, "T" date-stamps, thought to have been issued for use at telegraph offices, are common among the Middelburg date-stamps, and fairly common among the Potchefstroom date-stamps, adding to other evidence that they were frequently used for registered mail.
Any comments would be very welcome - especially from anyone who can identify the partial cachet shown in Figure 2.
Bas Payne
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I was very pleased to see this appear on the Club Forum. I have been collecting 'Cantonments' covers and postcards for several years largely because I feel that while the South African War - I prefer that term to Anglo-Boer War or Boer War which describe a war that affected only Anglos and or Boers, not all of South Africa's people, - gets most of the attention, the more boring enforcement of the peace does not. (My grandfather went to SA as a Royal Engineer in the Imperial Garrison.) As a result of this post, I have gone through my over sixty 'Cantonment' covers and postcards and found just three postally used 'T' cancels among them. I am surprised at this. I would have expected more. That said, until Bas' post, I had lived in ignorance of 'T' datestamps. The examples I found, see below, are all from Middelburg Cantonment. The first shows the Cantonment BO Middelburg TVL T datestamp used as a receiver on incoming mail, ' 1 JUL 1904'. I have extracted both the 1d pieces using the same datestamp cancelling stamps on dispatch from a complete PC, '8 May 1905', and a cover, '15 AUG 1904'. Also, a postcard bearing a 1/2d stamp cancelled with the 'non-T' version of what appears to be the same datestamp ,'15 JUL 1905'. Finally, there is a postcard showing bored soldiers, presumably from the Middelburg Cantonment, hanging around the court house. Hopefully, I have shown some more varied non-Registered, non 4d use of these datestamps. Thanks, Bas. I am now a little wiser, I think, and will look out for these in future once I am released from self-isolation.
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Thank you for these very interesting images and the great postmark engagement. The T-type postmark has been widely recorded, both in Cantonment and other post office, in both the double and triple circle cancelers as per the images that I am posting. It is an interesting debate, because there is many more T-type cancelers recorded used on postal items than on telegrams.
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