Avoca Date Stamp Variety

[Jerry Weirich]

Attached are two Avoca cancellations. They appear common...but are they! Casually reading the dates appear to be JA 19 10 and 15 MR 10. The year is not complete but based on the curved figure of the 0 it appears to be 1910. However, these stamps were not printed until December 1910 and first used in January 1911. The earliest known usage is JA 16 11. It appears that the postmaster cut the 0 in half to make a 1. I'm sure these are not rare, but anyone who collects cancellation varieties should add one to their collection. I've been meaning to report this variety for some time but didn't seem worthy of The Courier. This BB is great!

Avoca date errors resized.jpg (210.31 KiB) Viewed 1027 times

[Ross Ewington]

what an interesting discovery ..... I certainly haven't noticed this before!

if I can find any "proving" examples of the date variety I shall post them here and encourage other
BB members to please do the same.

I think a report of this variety warrants a mention in the next Courier.

[Jerry Weirich]

A third example of the Avoca cancellation variety has been found on another 2d stereotype. It is dated 6 MR 11 and shows the curved 1 in the year.

6_MR_11_ Year_Variety.jpg (157.56 KiB) Viewed 734 times