by J. 0. Howe
During a recent winter sojourn in Florida, the writer had occasion to have several discussions of precancel devices with Dr. F. Tulley Hallam and Rolston Lyon, both now residents of Clearwater. When we pooled our information, several obscure bits of precancel history began to fall into place. Noteworthy among them was a bit of discovery regarding the metal-surfaced rocker handstamps supplied to post offices for about a quarter of a century beginning in mid-1932.
From what we can put together, the Post Office Department began to be concerned about the rapid wear-out of rubber precanceling handstamps early in 1932. At that time, they had a contract with the Potomac Electrotype Co. for supplying metal electrotype plates for press-printing large quantities of precancels in local print shops. Apparently, they turned to this company for help in devising metal handstamps that would stand up better than the rubber ones. Beginning in late May of 1932, they diverted requests for precancel handstamps from the Cooper Stamp Works, which then held the contract for rubber handstamps, to Potomac on an experimental basis. The result was the first 25-subject handelectros, which showed a 1-mm. spacing between town and state.
When handelectros were deemed successful, the P.O.D. sent out questionnaires to postmasters who had received rubber handstamps to find out if they still had a need for precanceling equipment. On the basis of returns from this survey, they arranged to have about 4,500 post offices supplied with the new metal handstamps as “automatic replacements” for the rubber devices. These replacement devices never appeared in P.O.D. lists with dates of issue, as they were supplied without “birth certificates.” Several of them “discovered” by collectors in recent years have been viewed as mysteries, in view of the lack of dated evidence of their being issued. Many more remain to be discovered.
Now, the plot thickens. When contracts were let for supplying precancel handstamps for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1933, the successful bidder was the Chambers Co., of Lodge, Va. Beginning July 1, 1932, new orders for precanceling handstamps were filed by Chambers, whose devices showed a 2-mm. space between town and state. As Chambers again won the contract for the next fiscal year, all precancel handstamps with issue dates up to June 30, 1934, show this spacing.
Meanwhile, what was happening with the automatic supplying of replacement devices? As far as we can gather, Potomac continued to make and furnish such devices, with their characteristic 1-mm. spacing, for the entire list through Port Angeles, Wash. From Pullman, Wash., on, alphabetically, Chambers’ 2-mm. spacing seems to have prevailed. As it seems unlikely that Potomac could have produced that many devices in the last five weeks of fiscal 1932, they were probably still working on the list when Chambers came into the picture. When Chambers picked up the last part of the list is unknown.
Beginning July 1, 1934, Potomac took over the production of metal handstamps again. As postmasters had reported poor experience with the 25-subject devices, size was reduced to 10 subjects, 2 across and 5 deep, which remains the pattern to this day. Of course, the 1-mm. spacing again became the rule.
Although available records show that Potomac continued to hold the contract for the remainder of the period of the metal devices, ending in 1958, we find some variations that suggest this may not have been the case. The writer has reason to believe such devices issued in the fiscal years ending June 30, 1936 and 1938 were probably made by Henry Moss & Co., of Brooklyn, N.Y.; a different “family” of styles was used in these years. During fiscal 1936, the variation of U-122 with larger letters and wider spacing between town and state first appeared, as did those devices hereto identified as U-126 and U-127. The same pattern applied during fiscal 1938, as well as several variations that appeared in the latter half of this fiscal year, such as the U-120 with squatty letters, combinations of U-121 and U-120, and a condensed version of U-122. (As will be seen when the new P.S.S. Style Chart is distributed, this is an oversimplification of the facts.)
With the “dating” order of 1938, specifications for precanceling devices called for narrower spacings between lines, to leave more room on each stamp for the dating indicia. This brought on a new series of “narrow” handelectros. Despite what we find in the records, we believe that Potomac held the contract for only one year, ending June 30, 1940, and the other narrow handelectros were supplied by “Baumgarten,” which includes several different corporate entities. The general pattern from 1938 to 1958 consisted of styles identified as U-120N and U-121N. However, during fiscal 1940, we had such styles as U-122N, U-120N with squatty letters, and combinations of this with U-121N.
Our final anomaly in the handelectros occurs when we consider what was done with towns with unusually long names after the narrow spacing came into vogue. For some strange reason, this problem arose during only two fiscal years, 1951 and 1956. During these years, three-line arrangements of the town and state were used, similar to U-121A but with a slightly smaller spacing between lines. Examples are Battle Mountain, Nev., and South Lancaster, Mass., the former being called U-120A and the latter, U-121A. Although these appear to be “wides,” they are really narrows.
Whoever held the contracts at various times, the classification of handelectros and other government-issued precancel devices should become clearer when you get a chance to study the new P.S.S. Style Chart, which should be in your hands before long.