Dulverton "803" barred numeral cancels

Dulverton was allocated post office number 803 from 1844.  It was issued with two horizontal oval, one 4-bar vertical oval and two 3-bar vertical oval cancels.

This first sheet has an example of the second horizontal oval cancel and the 4-bar vertical oval cancel.

This second sheet has an example of the second 3-bar vertical oval cancel.

Somerton "720" horizontal and vertical oval cancels

The two sheets below have examples of the Somerton "720" 1844-type horizontal oval cancel, from 1844 and 1855.  The cancel is known used in black from May 1844 to March 1874, and in blue from September 1849 to January 1852.

Somerton also had two 3-bar vertical oval cancels, the first with a dot (so "720.") was issued in January 1875, and the one shown below without a dot (so "720") was issued in July 1881.

Trouble with Cancels

I'm currently looking through a number of Bath "53" three-bar horizontal oval single cancels (known as 3HOS) to work out which handstamp in the Steel Impression Book (SIB) has been applied.

I thought it was going to be straightforward, just take the date of the strike, look back in the Steel Impression Book to see when the handstamp was proofed before that date and Bob's your uncle !

Nope.

Even though some of the proofs in the SIB are marked as "recut", it does not appear that this means that the previous handstamp has been recut or made into the new one - so one has to compare a strike with all the previous handstamps to see which one it most closely matches, which is obviously a somewhat subjective process.

Here is a fairly clear example showing that one cannot just assume the previously proofed handstamp has been used.

Taunton Sub-Offices Barred Numeral cancels - Williton, Dunster, Minehead

A number of sub-offices of Taunton used 1844-style or 3HOS numeric cancels.

Below are examples of the horizontal oval cancels - unfortunately I don't have any examples of the three-bar vertical oval duplex cancels.  Williton (post office number 777) just had the one 1844-style cancel.

Dunster also just had the one 1844-style cancel.

Minehead had an 1844-style cancel ...

... and another three-bar horizontal oval single cancel (3HOS) issued on 7th October 1862.

Taunton 3HOS issued on 10th May 1859, 19th August 1863, 10th December 1863

Another three 3HOS were issued on 10th May 1859, 19th August 1863 and 10th December 1863 (the August 1863 3HOS did not seem to last long).  Here are examples from December 1860, September 1863 and February 1865 and January 1866.

On the reverse of this envelope, the first strike of the Taunton datestamp had the year set wrong, so the post office overstruck the datestamp with the obliterator and then applied the corrected datestamp.

Taunton 3HOS issued 10th May 1856, 14th February 1857, 9th April 1859

Three further 3HOS were issued on 10th May 1856, 14th February 1857 and 9th April 1859 according to the SIB.  Below are examples of the first two, from September 1856 and June 1857 (I don't have an example of the 9th April 1859 3HOS).

Taunton Barred Numeral Cancels - 3HOS issued 15th November 1854

The next 3HOS was issued on 15th November 1854, 32 months after the previous issue (according to the Steel Impression Book).  Here are a couple of examples from December 1854.

Taunton Barred Numeral Cancels - 3HOS issued 19th March 1852

The dates of these subsequent three-bar Horizontal Oval Single cancels (3HOS) are based on the proofs in the Steel Impression Book (SIB).  Here are two examples from November 1852 and January 1853.