UDCs: Exford, Holnicote, Stawley

Three UDCs on one cover:  the envelope went from Exford via Holnicote to Minehead, via Wellington to Stawley, picking up three UDCs on the way.  The envelope exhibits the usual, fairly poor, strikes of  UDCs.

UDCs: Curry-Rival

Curry-Rival (or Curry-Rivell or Curry-Rivel) was issued with a 29mm seriffed UDC on 7th February 1844.  The UDC is known in black (from December 1848 to February 1857), blue (August 1851 to July 1859), and a single example in red (November 1845).  Here are a couple of examples from 1848 and 1857 (currently the earliest and latest recorded examples in black).

Commercial use of Postcards - Ilminster, Taunton

Here are a few pages illustrating a few commercial uses of Postcards, firstly from Ilminster in the 1920s, and then from Taunton in the 1890s and 1920s.

The item below is a receipted invoice from an Ilminster Builder, from 1875.

Cheap Parcel Post, 1851

The printed letter shown below, from Taunton to Wiveliscombe in September 1851, offers Reduced Rates of Carriage in competition to the Railways.  Rowland Hill and the Post Office had tried to introduce a Government Parcel Post service in 1840 but had been defeated by the objections and intransigence of the Railways.

UDCs: Bishop's Hull, Bradford-on-Tone and Creech St Michael

Here are a trio of UDCs, all issued under Taunton.  The first is in blue for Bishop's Hull and was used in February 1854, the latest example currently known.

The "BRADFORD" udc below was issued for Bradford-on-Tone in September 1845.  The example below in green, was used in January 1858.

The UDC for Creech St Michael was misspelt "CREECH ST MICHAL" but was not corrected.  The example below is the first one recorded, in red from July 1847.

Bagborough UDC 1856, 1857

Bagborough was issued a UDC in June 1852 under Taunton.  The following two covers display the earliest and latest examples currently recorded.

The second example is also a Ship Letter, with a partial "SHIP LETTER / FREE / GEELONG .VICTORIA" handstamp, with contents relating to the sale of sheep, farming equipment and land.

Undated Circular handstamps (UDCs) - Ashill, under Taunton 1856, 1857

The next series of posts are all about UDCs (undated circular handstamps) - these handstamps were issued to typically village Post Offices, mainly for use on outgoing mail, while larger post offices were issued with dated barred numeral cancels.

Starting at 'A', here are a couple of examples of the Ashill double-arc udc.  The UDC was issued under Taunton in September 1850.  This first example in blue is from November 1856 ...

...  the second example is from January 1857, also in blue.  It has a nice London cachet "Received open and resealed / at the General Post Office".

After the undated double-arc handstamps, an undated single ring handstamp was issued in September 1858.  Below is the only recorded example, used in March 1859, though one spelt "ASHIL" is recorded used in June 1860.

Chewton-Mendip serif UDC, 1840-1841

The "CHEWTON-MENDIP" serif UDC was issued on 30th March 1840 under Bristol.  Until recently only one example was known, from November 1840, but now a second example has been recorded used in March 1841.

Given the two examples, there are probably others.  The handstamp looks worn by March 1841 so has probably had some use.

Ilminster Paid Marks, 1954 - 1965

When Ilminster Council sent out the Rate demands they prepaid the postage, with PAID marks used to indicate this.  The following three sheets show a progression from 1954 to 1965, starting with a couple of different Krag PAID marks from 1954 and 1955.  The top example is "ILMINSTER", the second "ILMINSTER.SOM".

In 1956 and 1957 "PAID" handstamps were used.

Then from 1959 Unified machine PAID marks were used - I don't know what was used in 1958 !  As you can see below the cost of the postage increased over time.