I noticed this hand stamp on eBay UK. Initially it did not appear to be a known (to me) postmark due to some distortion of the copy on my PC, but after advice from Ross Ewington and re-examination its the half-framed double arc type, which although scarce with the town name Ross, is nothing unusual. Refer to Green Book Vol 1, p 61. This type has the town name at the top un-framed, two arcs framing the bottom, and the date in two lines accross the middle. The date may be either in the form Day-Month-Day, or Day-Month( as per the Ross example). The year is always in the bottom line.
John Hardinge's records indicate the Ross double arc type early and late dates are 25 Jan 1866 and 28 Jun 1880. It was replaced by a type 1 CDS , early date 19 April 1881.
(Post ammended by author so as not to appear too silly 11 April 10)
- Ross-handstamp-eBay.jpg (25.88 KiB) Viewed 1143 times
. Other examples of this early type would be welcome.
Pete