UNCLASSIFIED TYPE 8 STEEL DATESTAMP ?

[Ross Ewington]

While sorting out postmarks for the topic I started recently entitled "Sorting Out Modern Tasmanian Postmarks ...."
http://tps.org.au/bb/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=361, I came across this Type 8 steel datestamp impression from
WOODBRIDGE.
[attachment=0]woodbridge t8.jpg[/attachment]
This steel datestamp was one of the last issued to a Tasmanian post office (ERD 27JA 90) and was used during the 1990s
until a neoprene-face datestamp was introduced.

It is quite different from any of the Type 8 cds classified and recorded by "Avery & Hardinge"** in that it has no side arcs.
The closest defined type is Type 8aT (e.g. as used at South Hobart) but although this datestamp is similar, all examples have
side arcs and one would therefore assume that this is an essential criterion for this classification.

[** the reason for this not datestamp not having been classified by A&H is that the period that their published books cover is 1913-1988 and the issue
of this datestamp and subsequent period of use post-dates this period.]

I would like to provisionally classify this datestamp as Type 8dT

Comments, criticisms, revelations (like "it's already been done Ross!") are welcome as are reports of the same type of steel datestamp being issued to and used at
other offices.

[Ross Ewington]

After making the first post on this topic, I had a look through a box of 1990s covers that I had put aside for
a future "sort through" and found this additional example used at KETTERING (just a short distance away from
WOODBRIDGE).
[attachment=0]kettering t8.jpg[/attachment]

Interesting to note that someone has mixed up the dateline wheels so that "MA" appears rather than "AM".

[Colin Salt]

I show two more impressions of this datestamp.

The time shows as 11-A in each case, the M having disappeared.