To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 a

I have wrote a lot on CTO stamps in the past articles.
From easy to recognise CTO cancels, over the harder ones.
This - for now - last part is about disputable cancels.

The cancels in this article are not really CTO cancels, but they are no postal cancellations either.
They are not fake, but the cancels on the stamps were not for postal use.
This means, those stamps weren't used as post stamps, or at least the cancel tells us that.
In that way, they fit the same definition as some CTO cancelled stamps...
The stamps are made unusable (cancelled) but not for postal trafic.

Let me give some examples:

Two beautiful Japanese stamps from the so-called UPU-Koban series (1883).

Scott catalogue mention shortly that those stamps can be found with "telegraph or telephone office cancels" and "sell at considerable lower prices then the postally used copies"...
The beauties above are such cancels.
Scott doesn't helps us further then the quotes lines above.
The French "Yvert" catalogue doesn't help us either, and even the (Japanese) Sakura catalogue fails to help me.

I had to search in the German "Michel" to find a picture of what was meant.

non postal cancels - old Japan

This might look like Japanese to most of you, and ... indeed it is.
The first cancel is a telegraph cancel.

telegraph stamps with telegraph cancels

The first type of these cancels is eay to recognise : an outer circle with japanese inscriptions, and an inner circle that remains empty.

post stamp with telegraph cancel

In the picture above, we see a regular stamp (1883) with a telegrap cancel.

to be continued ...

Brazil : 01d Early issues - Dom Pedro II

In 1878, a two coloured stamp was issued.
Again a younger version of the emperor, since the beard appear more colourful then the previous emission.

There was only one stamp of this type in circulation, but the catalogue mentions 2 version, one on normal paper and one on very thin paper.
This last one was found much later, when the stamp was already redrawn from postal use.
Therefore, the 'thin' stamps are only found mint (some even without gum).

300 reis (scott 0078)

I'm skipping some stamps now, but I'll come back on them on my next posting.
First I'm showing the 1883 and 1884 issue, which was the last set of stamps depicting the emperor.

In 1883 two very similar stamps of 100 reis were printed (one in March, one in April).
Scott even mention 3 types of the stamp.
The difference is in the background behind the head of emperor Dom Pedro II.

scott 0090, type I and type II

Type I shows a background of horizontal lines

detail scott 0090 T I

Type II shows a background of diagonal crossed lines

detail scott 0090 T II

Type III shows a plain filled background (no pic)

The local brazilian catalogue doesn't mention this third variation, but in later reprints, in black, a third version indeed is mentionned. Maybe the plate that was used, wasn't very clean at the time of printing, so that the colour filled more or less the full background.
In the black reprint, this 'dirty'plate will be more responsible for the 'filled' background of this third stamp.

Finally, in 1884,  the last stamp depicting the emperor was emitted.
Again it's a 100 reis stamp, in the same, dull pink colour.
Now the emperor is shown a bit older again.

scott 0091

Next time, the stamps of 1881-88.