Coded postal obliterators


Coded postal obliterators are a type of postmarks that had an obliterator encoded with a number, letter or letters, or a combination of these, to identify the post office of origin. They were introduced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1843, three years after the first stamp was issued. They became common throughout the nineteenth century but very few remained in use until the twentieth century.
The practice of cancelling a stamp on a letter with a device to prevent reuse and applying alongside, or on the reverse of the article, a dated stamp including the post office name, began in 1840 when postage stamps were introduced in the United Kingdom.
Soon, in many countries, various systems developed where the obliterator had a code identifying the post office of origin. Most such codes were enclosed within a design of dots, rays, bars or concentric circles or ovals to ensure the effective cancellation of the stamp. Similar designs without an enclosed code are known as dumb or mute obliterators. Later the duplex canceller with the datestamp on the left and the obliterator on the right came into common use. Coded obliterators were used throughout the nineteenth century but few persisted to the twentieth century.
Coded obliterations are collected by philatelists and rare examples can command high prices.
Postal administrations which used coded obliterators include:

United Kingdom and colonies

The first coded obliterators were numerals within a Maltese cross design used at the London mail centre from 1843. From 1844 distinctive and different barred designs were introduced for England, Scotland and Ireland. England and Wales numerals were within a circle of bars, while Scotland used a rectangular form and Irish codes within a barred diamond. Codes corresponding to London postal districts e.g. W21 were also used.

British Post Offices abroad

Coded obliterators were used at many British post offices operating in foreign countries using British stamps. They include:
used barred obliterators "A02" and "A18", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Australian colonies

Prior to federation, the Australian colonies all used coded obliterators:
used barred obliterator "A05", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Barbados

Bermuda

British Bechuanaland

British Guiana

used barred obliterators "A03" and "A04", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

British Honduras

used a barred obliterator "A06", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

British Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands used a barred obliterator "A13", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Canada

and the provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia used numeral obliterators.

Ceylon

Cyprus

used barred obliterators "982", "974", "942", "975, "969", "981", "D48" and "D47", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Dominica

used a barred obliterator "A07", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Egypt

used a barred obliterator "B01" or "B02", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Gibraltar

used the barred obliterators "G" and "A26", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Gold Coast

Grenada

used a barred obliterator "A15", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Hong Kong

used a barred obliterator "B62". Also the "62B" supplementary killer.
The treaty ports of China or Japan, where the Hong Kong stamps were utilised by the British administrators and consulates acting as local post masters for the traders operating in China, were issued with their own barred obliterators
AMOY 1844 "A1" & "D27"
CANTON 1844 "C1"
FOOCHOW 1844 "F1"
HANKOW 1872 "D29"
KIUNGCHOW 1873 "D28"
NINGPO 1844 "N1"
SHANGHAI 1844 "S1"
SWATOW 1861 "S2"
KOBE 1869 "D30"
NAGASAKI 1860 "N2"
YOKOHAMA 1859 "Y1"

India

Jamaica

used the barred obliterator "A01" for the capital Kingston, originally on the stamps of Great Britain. The obliterators "A27" to "A78" were used by various district post offices, once again also originally on British stamps.

Malta

used the barred obliterators "M" and "A25", initially on British and later on Maltese stamps:
originally used a "B53" barred obliterator, and later other "B"-prefixed codes and barred numerals.

Montserrat

used a barred obliterator "A08", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Nevis

used a barred obliterator "A09", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Saint Christopher

used a barred obliterator "A12", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Saint Lucia

used a barred obliterator "A11", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Saint Vincent

used a barred obliterator "A10", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Seychelles

used a barred obliterator "B64", originally on the stamps of Mauritius.

South African colonies

The British South Africa Company, Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal used numeral obliterators.

Straits Settlements

Trinidad and Tobago

used a barred obliterator "A14", originally on the stamps of Great Britain.

Zanzibar

Belgium

Chile

Colombia

Denmark

used a series of numerals within three concentric circles. Some duplex obliterators were used. They were all withdrawn in 1873.

France

The obliterator was as a diamond or trapezoidal shaped grid of dots, measuring about 20 millimeters on each side, with a set of numbers at its center. The number consisted of anywhere between one and four digits, and was unique to the post office that used it. For this reason, such numbers are sometimes referred to by philatelists as "town numbers."
Two main types of the losange were used, the "losange à petits chiffres" from 1852 to 1862, and the "losange à gros chiffres" from 1862 to 1876. Distinguishing the two is based largely on the size of the numbers and the size of the dots in the cancel. The dots are noticeably smaller in the "losange à petits chiffres" and its numbers measured approximately 4 millimeters high. Town numbers between 1 and 4494 are documented. Town numbers from 3704 to 4018 and 4222 indicate use at a French Post office abroad.
The "losange à gros chiffres" obliterator had numbers twice as big being nearly 8 millimeters tall. Since the overall size of the cancel remained the same, a larger portion of a large number obliterator consisted of the town number. The list of numbers used increased as the number of new post offices opened, with numbers known up to 6449. Town numbers 2387 and from 5079 to 5156 were those assigned to French post offices outside continental France.

German states

Prior to unification, various German states had numeral obliterators:
The Hellenic Post Office introduced numerically coded postal obliterations in October 1861, with the introduction of the first postage stamps. They were of rhombic shape with the number of the post office at the center. In philatelic publications they are describes as Type I Classic Postmarks. A total of 150 different numbers can be found. The Type I obliterations were withdrawn in January 1881, so they are found only on Large Hermes definitives and on the first two issues of postage due stamps of the period.

Crete

The post office of the Cretan State supplied every rural postman with a numerically coded obliteration. There were of diamond shape and were used from 1900 to 1907 to cancel the stamps on letters collected by the postman. Philatelic literature distinguishes four types of postmarks based on the number of dots per side.

Guatemala

Iceland

Italy

Mexico

Netherlands and colonies

and its colonies Curaçao, Suriname and Dutch East Indies used a numeral series.

Nicaragua

Norway

Portugal

Russia

Spain

United States

Uruguay

Venezuela

used a series of barred numerals.