FANCY CANCELS OF USA - Part Two

FANCY CANCELS OF 19th & 20th Century USA

By – Dr. Satyendra Kumar Agrawal

Though illegal but highly desirable: Modern US Fancy Cancels

Modern Fancy Cancels are finer, clearer and more stylized than their predecessor’s classic Fancy Cancels, representing mostly physical items. Possibly as many as 2,000 different fancy cancellations exist from the period between the early 1920s to the mid 1930s, In addition to Cork and Wood, as used for carving 19th C fancy cancels, 20th C used apples, potatoes, linoleum, shoe soles, leather belts, roofing shingles and rubber stamps or preparing cachets. But the most important and striking difference between Classic and Modern Fancy Cancels is that later one was prepared and applied by general public before presenting the Postal Authority for mailing. Few also requested to Postal clerk to apply their prepared devices for defacing the stamps. The ink used was also not always black as per postal directives but were in multitude of colours, most favorite of them are red, blue, green and purple.

  Read complete article in Issue no.56 of “ITS Stamp News”