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Woodcarving Classes - Tuesdays 1 PM to 5 PM & Thursday 6 PM to 9 PM
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We recently began archiving the museum's entire collection of old postcards - over 1000 them so far - and are discovering some real gems.
Watch this page for some of the more interesting historical scenic views, holiday cards, scarce stamps and postmarks and cards with great messages! |
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(563) 539-2640 - (563) 539-8083 - staff@mononahistoricalmuseum.org
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This postcard was sent to Mrs. John Killen in Monona on February 19th, 1910. It was mailed by "Fred K" while he was enroute to the west coast on the Great Northern Railway's "Oriental Limited".
What makes this particular postcard interesting is not the content, but the perforated stamp and the cancellation on the card. The perforations are what is known as a "perfin". A perfin is a number of small holes in a distinct pattern applied to postage and other stamps as security against theft. The name perfin is a condensed form of perforated initials, although some perfins are full names or symbols rather than initials. |
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| Note the initials "GNRY" punched in the stamp pictured at the right; they stand for "Great Northern Railway". These types of postal covers (where the perfin or pre-cancel is used for personal mail rather than business mail) are quite scarce and collectible.
The message on this postcard reads as follows: |
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We mentioned precancels above - this is what a precancel is all about. |
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| A precancel is a stamp that is cancelled before being affixed to mail. This practice began on a small scale almost as soon as stamps were born, as a time-saving procedure for postmasters. For large mailings, it was a lot quicker and easier to cancel a sheet of stamps in advance than to cancel 100 envelopes separately. In the early days, precancels consisted of pen-lines, printed lines or bars, initials, or certain designs.
The name of the post office didn't start appearing on precancels until the 1880's. In the early 1900's the Post Office department decided it was time to have some consistency with precancel designs, so they directed that precancels have the name of the city and state between two parallel lines. This practice remained until the late 1970's, when bureau precancels stopped having city names printed on them. Local precancels still do have city names between two lines. Users had to obtain a permit, so that the post office could keep a lid on re-use of precancels. It was against regulations for the permit-holder to sell mint precancels to anyone else. Precancels had their hey-day in the 1920's, when they were used on virtually all bulk mail and much parcel post. Since then they've been in gradual decline until today, when there are probably only 5-10 post offices in the country still using precancels with city names, other than philatelic usage. This decline was due partly to the postage meter, which gradually replaced stamps on parcel post, and partly to bulk-rate printed indicia's which replaced stamps on bulk mail. Thus it wasn't that the idea of precancelling became outdated, it was that the use of postage stamps became less efficient than other methods of paying the postage. |
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Sent out as an incentive to purchase baking powder, this postcard is unique in that the informational part of the postcard is printed under the papoose on the obverse. The cradleboard is a small tab that pulls out to reveal the message. |
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| Scott #279 | |||||||||
| This particular precancel is known as a bureau precancel. Bureau precancels were made by inserting a precanceling plate in the sequence of stamps printed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. | |||||||||
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Designed and maintained by Kitchen Table Webs - Monona, Iowa
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