Transvaal Triple Circle 'T' Datestamps
I bought the BRAKPAN 'T' cover below at a stamp fair in Stevenage Town Hall yesterday. I am not a ZAR / Transvaal collector. However, I did buy a similar TC (triple circle) cover from Wemmershoek some years ago because the postmark was sharp and entire.
At that time I was told by Paul van Zeyl RDPSA, a Transvaal collector and specialist, that the TC is a typically Transvaal style of postmark that was collectible when in good condition. I learned that there are not many other South African postmarks with complete triple circles. Ian Mathews (Transvaal Philately) says this is an 'Edwardian' postmark. Putzel lists it as Brakpan No. 2. I bought the one below because of the 'T' at the base of the circle. I cautiously hoped that the 'T' stood for 'Telegraph' but was not confident that it did.
I had previously asked Bas Payne, a leading ZAR / Transvaal specialist about the 'T' in the 'CANTONMENT T' datestamps. I thought the 'T' stood for 'Telegraph'. His reply was not what I wanted to hear. He said that while it is widely believed that the 'CANTONMENT T' stands for 'Telegraph', there is no contemporary documentation to show that this was its intended purpose, nor are there abundant examples found on telegram forms. Basically, we do not yet know enough about the subject to confirm telegraphic use.
His advice on the BRAKPAN 'T' was equally guarded. According to Bas, we shouldn’t be surprised by how little we know! The facts which he has accumulated in his impressive study do not provide clear-cut proof of telegraphic use. (See his short PDF file below that includes information on TC datestamps.) "The Brakpan "triple circle" (TC) cancellation" he says, "has a known date-range of 1904-1922. It's relatively common and found on outgoing mail (cards, letters and registered mail), and as an arrival date-stamp (as in your example)." Readers might note that there is no reference to telegraph forms in his list. Bas adds "there has been a fair amount of speculation about these TC datestamps".
"There are over 30 Transvaal offices which used TC cancellers, and they were probably issued between 1902 and 1909. It has been suggested that the 'T' might mean that they were used telegraphically; however only two offices have the 'T' and many of the offices that had TC datestamps didn't have telegraphic facilities. It has also been suggested that the 'T' was for Transvaal, which it could have been, and that they could be associated with railway use - but while it's true that a few post-1910 examples have been found on railway stamps, many of the offices with TC datestamps aren't on railways. So it's a bit of a puzzle. My own guess, mainly on the basis that the style of the lettering is unusual for Transvaal datestamps is that they may simply all have been cut by an engraver with a particular idiosyncratic style of lettering and layout."
To learn more, see the PDF file below. This has a section on TC datestamps which holds pretty much all that is known about them. If you can contribute to the ongoing research on ZAR / Transvaal postal history, please do so.
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