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In 1996, the North Carolina Postal History Society published a four-volume set of books titled, “Post Offices and Postmasters of North Carolina.” These carefully prepared books, under the editorial leadership of Vernon S. Stroupe, documented not only the post offices and postmasters of 6915 different post offices in North Carolina from the pre-revolutionary times to modern times, but also illustrated all known postmarks from these offices used before the twentieth century.
A long-term project is now underway to update that catalog with new postmark information from the nineteenth century and to add the known postmarks from the twentieth century. Since it will take several years to complete this work, the North Carolina Postal History Society wants to share the development of the new catalog as it is being completed, county by county. In this way we hope to make available postmark data which is known now and not wait until the whole catalog is completed.
The format we will use comes from the original catalog. Each post office is listed alphabetically within a county along with the postmasters of that office. Also shown are the known postmarks of that office. The data has been created for each county in pdf files that can be downloaded if desired for each county separately. In many cases, the file sizes are large; however, we feel that those interested in downloading the information for their own use will find a suitable means to access the large files. They are easily downloaded for users with high-speed internet access. After downloading a file, the catalog information is available to be used or to be printed out. All the data from the original catalog is presented along with the added new information. For each postmark, we will provide either the black and white tracing from the original catalog or a color scan of a new marking made from actual postmarks if available. Some of the “color scans” will be from black and white photocopies since that format was the only information available. Each marking will show a new type number, the dimension of the marking, the color of the marking, and the dates of use that we have observed.
The rights to the digital information contained in these files belongs to the North Carolina Postal History Society; therefore, any use other than personal is prohibited without the consent of the North Carolina Postal History Society.
In determining the classification criteria of the new markings, we have used the classification systems that have been published by twentieth century postal historians. The classification of duplex metal handstamps was published by Richard W. Helbock and Dan Meschter in La Posta (May 1988). The Doane and 4-Bar postmark classifications were published by Doug DeRoest in La Posta (September 1990). Tony Crumbley, who maintains the Doane database for North Carolina, has provided the latest information on North Carolina Doane cancels. The machine cancellation types have be validated by members of the Machine Cancel Society. This society has shared with us the current information of North Carolina machine markings from their extensive database of United States machine cancels.
A large part of the new information for this catalog has come from the Postal History Collection at the North Carolina State Archives. Their support of this project has been monumental. In addition, a substantial amount of data has come from the Post Mark Collectors Club Research Center in Bellevue, Ohio, where they maintain the largest postmark collection found anywhere in the world. Many new markings also have come from Tony Crumbley’s extensive collection of North Carolina postal history. Important updates also have come from the massive records maintained by the editor of the previous catalog, Vernon S. Stroupe, who never stopped collecting information about North Carolina postmarks and graciously shared this data until his untimely death in 2006.
Our desire is that interested collectors will examine the listed markings against their collections. Where new postmarks are found or revisions to the information provided, such as dates of use, color, etc., we hope that this new information will be submitted for consideration to be included in the catalog. Please send your data to:
If you wish to report new postmarks, please include a 300 dpi color scan or a high resolution color photocopy of the marking to the address shown, either electronically or by regular mail. Please make certain that the new postmarks show 100 percent of the actual marking size. This way the data can be incorporated into the catalog. Questions or inquiries can be referred to the address above also.
The County listings that are currently available are:
(Note: the files below may be large and take
several minutes to download.)
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