The British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) has released three books just in time for the holidays.
The first two December releases were compiled by Brian Stalker and edited by Ross Gray. The first, Travelling Post Office Postmarks of Newfoundland & Labrador (Second Edition 2016) – A Study of the Postmark Hammers, includes a new format, a new numbering system and more than 300 updates from the first edition. The 136-page black and white (with some colour) book retails for $47.
BNAPS Book Department Co-ordinator Mike Street said this second edition is a “companion volume” to the second edition of Gray’s Catalogue of Canadian Railway Cancellations, published in 2015.
“Being aware that Newfoundland and Labrador, with a much higher proportion of coastal mail steamer services, tended to be a discrete area of study, it was agreed that a separate catalogue would be produced,” said Street, who added the catalogues share a consistent style and format owing to Gray’s editorship. “That also enabled more illustrations and hammer data to be included in the ‘Rest-of-Canada’ catalogue, while maintaining a manageable size.”
Aside from the 300 updates received in the 12 years since the first edition was published, the second edition has been completely reformatted using new listing numbers (with railway postmarks numbered from NL-1 and coastal steamer postmarks numbered from NL-100).
Examples of nearly all postmark hammer strikes are included in the new book, each section of which includes general background information.
ORDER DETAILS
Books published by the British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) are available from Sparks Auctions on 1550 Carling Ave., Suite 202, in Ottawa, Ont. For more information, email BNAPS@sparks-auctions.com or call 1-613-567-3336. Orders can also be placed online at sparks-auctions.com/bnapsbooks/.
BNAPS members receive a 40 per cent discount on all books. Shipping is extra. Credit card orders (Visa and MasterCard) will be billed for the exact amount of shipping plus $2 for each order. For payment by cheque or money order, contact Sparks Auctions in advance. Applicable taxes will be charged on orders for delivery in Canada.
Travelling Post Office Postmarks of Newfoundland & Labrador (Second Edition 2016) – A Study of the Postmark Hammers is accompanied by this 388-page ‘sister volume,’ which includes a compendium of related information about the railway and travelling post office postmarks of Newfoundland.
‘SISTER VOLUME’
Travelling Post Office Postmarks of Newfoundland & Labrador (Second Edition 2016) – A Study of the Postmark Hammers is accompanied by a “sister volume,” which offers a compendium of related information about the railway post office (RPO) and travelling post office (TPO) postmarks of Newfoundland. The 388-page black and white (with some colour) book retails for $78.
Stalker, a retired electrical engineer, was introduced to Canadian RPO postmarks nearly 40 years ago, and he has been collecting, studying and exhibiting these postmarks ever since. He’s a Fellow of the Canadian Philatelic Society of Great Britain and was inducted into the Order of the Beaver, the Fellowship of BNAPS, in 2015. He’s an active member of several philatelic societies in the U.K.
Street said the compendium summarizes 20 years of research and “will aid anyone wishing to identify the routes taken, the vessels and the mail officers who handled mail to and from outports around Newfoundland and Labrador’s coastlines.”
Route maps showing ports of call are shown alongside a selection of timetables and schedules from the period 1880-1968. Included in other chapters are chronological summaries; mail contract terms and conditions; railway mail cars; mail steamer data; mail subsidies; treatment of late letters and registered mail; 20th century motor boat and water services; and a listing of railway mail clerks and coastal steamer mail officers. Some chapters also include illustrations and photographs of mail.
Street added data for 1880-1930 is “comprehensive, but is less so from 1930 onwards.”
“Despite that limitation, this compendium breaks new ground by its breadth and depth of coverage of the story behind Newfoundland and Labrador’s RPO and TPO postmarks,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL RAPID CANCELLING MACHINES
Cecil Coutts’ 164-page International Rapid Cancelling Machines Volume 2 – Ontario is the second of three volumes detailing the use of international machines to cancel Canadian mail.
Rounding out BNAPS’ December book releases is Cecil Coutts’ International Rapid Cancelling Machines Volume 2 – Ontario, which is the second of three volumes detailing the use of international machines to cancel Canadian mail. The 164-page, spiral-bound colour book retails for $68.
It has been nearly 35 years since The Early Rapid Cancelling Machines of Canada was published by David Sessions, and since then, a “considerable amount of new early/late postmark dates and other data have been reported,” according to Street.
Including many contemporary examples, this second volume completely updates the international machines portion of Session’s 1982 work for the province of Ontario. All data for each town or city that had an international machine is presented in table form.
“On their own these tables would not take many pages, but Cec has added many covers illustrating not only line cancellations but also Flag cancellations for the locations that had Flags, as well as contemporary postcards – almost all in colour – of virtually every town or city, providing a most interesting view of the 1902-1920 period,” Street said.
The third volume – for Quebec, the Maritimes and Newfoundland – will be published by BNAPS in 2017. The first volume, which detailed Western Canada, was published in August 2016.
For more information, visit bnaps.org.