OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND STUDY GROUP OF BNAPS
Number 93 March/April 2002
SCOTT #13 WITH QUARTERED CORK CANCEL
Sammy Whaley
The stamp is Scott/Unitrade #13, NSSC #14, the six pence orange issue of 1860 [see A.P.S. Certificate below]. Very little exists in the literature regarding the orange pence printings as they are seldom studied due to the lack of material with which to work. The printing arrived in August, 1860 and was used for a brief period, then replaced with the rose-lake printings of 1861-62. Col. Robert Pratt in his classic work The Pence Issues of Newfoundland records only two covers franked with the six pence orange. A third cover surfaced in Great Britain in 2000. Of the three covers the latest recorded usage is November 2, 1860. The supply of stamps was exhausted in the post offices by the end of 1861, which means there were no remainders to be obtained later as was the case with the rose-lake printings. Although very rare, mint examples of the six pence orange exist even today which means there were some copies in private hands after 1861, which could then have been used later.
The cancel, a nice example of the large quartered cork, is not found very often. It is put forth by Col. Pratt, and is generally accepted by students of early Newfoundland, that the cork cancels did not appear until the introduction of the Cents rate in April, 1865. (I have seen only one example of a cork cancel prior to April, 1865 and that being on a piece from an outpost with an 1863 datestamp - ???) From April, 1865 until the end of that year, three variations of cork cancels were used to cancel the pence stamps which were used until the arrival of the Cents stamps in November, 1865. These three are referred to as the large corks as they measured 23 millimeters in diameter. They were replaced with the small corks (20 millimeters) in November, 1865 with the arrival of the Cents stamps. There are no recorded covers after December, 1865 with any of the large cork cancels, limiting their usage from April, 1865 to the end of the year. We can even narrow the time frame for the use of the large cork cancel illustrated even further as the three large corks were not randomly used but were used in sequence with the cancel shown being the last to be used. It is only recorded on covers from mid September through October, 1865 limiting its use to less than two months.
Although large cork cancels appear quite frequently on the rose-lake printings, to my knowledge this is the only orange printing with a large cork cancel as they are invariably cancelled with the 10 bar grid. Having found it one has to either move the latest usage of the six pence orange to September-October, 1865 or move the earliest usage of the large quartered cork up to 1861 when latest usage of the six pence orange is recorded. It is certainly more feasible to believe this six pence orange was used in 1865 to pay the newly adopted twelve cent rate to Great Britain, perhaps the only orange stamp to pay a Cents rate…
Should anyone have knowledge of any additional cork cancels on the orange printing of the pence stamps I would certainly appreciate that information being passed on to me.
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