Great Britain: Postmarks

Two questions.
1. can someone decipher the cancel on the left for me? I get February 17 1841, but what do the triangle and the M mean? This was sent to Perth Scotland




Also, I have a post card mailed in 1914. The postmark reads OPENSHAW D. O. MANCHESTER.  
Can you tell me what D. O. stands for?



thanks

James

I believe that to be a Scottish postmark. The triangle being a stamper code? and the M signifying the Morning duty.
This one looks to be a similar postmark with different date and Stamper Code C and the E for Evening from Edinburgh to Ayr.

Followup
A quick search did not answer my questions, but I did find this interesting powerpoint about British cancels. Might be interesting to those of you who get this stuff.
All it tells me is that a simple penny post was a REALLY good idea!

www.slideshare.net/ebbondar/how-to-read-and-code-19thcentury-british-postmarks-in-tei

The triangle is indeed curious,
my guess is the hammer is a transit mark, either Glasgow, or Edinburgh.

Your cover has taken two days, the distance Manchester to Perth is 205 Miles,  the Coach and 4, probably would average about 10 miles per hour
that would make it doubtful being a Perth backstamp in my view.

I would tend to disagree with your assumption of "H" I would put my money on 11
It is the hammer number, allocated to a position along the cancelling counter.
It serves as a device to account for usage / repair of hammers in use /damaged /under repair etc & etc.

James,
here are Ron and Eunice's web pages,
by all means, take any queries up with this very knowledgeable Aussie couple,
Eunice has been published in a number of Stamp Magazines

Hope this helps.
PS: Post back any info you may find out.

www.earsathome.com/phtoc.html

zipper

Allan does not have the Malvern Squared circle Postmark either,
I'd like to send that one as well
Cheers

Sent off to Mr. Oliver.
If they appear, they have your attributation.
Many Thanks.

Rod, and everyone else
Ron and Eunice were kind and quick in their response to my query.
With their permission, I'll post here part of their response to my question about the triangle in the cancel I posted above.

'Your query is interesting as we cannot find it in any of our reference books, but we know we have seen it somewhere... At the moment we cannot be sure, but we would hazard a guess that it was applied in Edinburgh as a transit stamp, the usual CDS in use 1812-1839, (but that’s because the catalogue is up to 1840) and that the triangle on the left is part of an ‘additional’ hand stamp used when the mail traffic was larger than normal. The letter on the left is usually the identifying letter of the hand stamp, so really anything would do there, so long as it could be identified and related to whoever was doing the stamping on that day at that time. We do not think we have an example in our collection, (which really is based pre-stamp or 1840) but will check this out with our e-mail sources and see if we can find the definitive answer for you.

This is what is generally referred to as a wrapper (i.e. no contents to the letter), and what you note as the return address is actually a filing note written on it by the addressee (or his clerk) as to the origin, i.e. the name and date of the sender, for easy reference without opening it up to find out. We find this on a lot of our letters which are ‘commercial’ rather than personal letters. We have been collecting for about 50 years, but there is always something new to discover.'

If they do follow up with more info, I'll post it here.

Here are the 'filing notes'
Can't make head nor tails of them myself.



Further emails from Eunice today...

'...well, we have contacted our other sources and the information seems to confirm that the letters on the right indicate the time code - i.e. M morning A afternoon N Night, and as an aside we have an example of a later date when the letter on the right is X and we have no idea what that would signify

The letter on the left refers in some way to the surname of the person using that hand stamp, so that the triangle would seem to be to identify the stamp but not with any particular person, i.e. an additional, or a ‘Relief’ stamp in the case of something going wrong with the one otherwise in use. Ron worked in the Post Office for years, and they always had a Relief stamp, but this was more than 100 years later, so that is probably irrelevant Eye rolling smile.

Ron was sure that we had an example somewhere and spent some hours fossicking through our boxes of un-dealt-with material, and sure enough he found one – a somewhat scruffy wrapper in my collection of TOO LATE marks, which we were going to scan to show you another example, but have now mis-laid it again.... when we find it again we will scan it and e-mail it to you.... this will happen, but who knows when...'

And then...

'Aha, so here we are again, we found it, mis-laid into the Scottish Additional halfpenny folder....
So when we saw it, we noticed that this is also the one with the X as the time indicator....
But it belongs in the TOO LATE section. I have much better examples of this particular one, but I have it as it is a late example (1855) so I don’t know what it would have been too late for?? Possibly the X factor?'

Here is the lovely example she sent me.


Again, I hope they don't mind my posting their responses and the excellent example. A great learning opportunity for us all.
Thanks Ron and Eunice!

Droylsden,  Chester Station Office,  Stretford,  Trowbridge cancels

Great Britain  Postmarks.
Any student wishing to carry out a deeper study,
download Billig's Volume 9 here

Instructions
Click Link
CTRL F   and insert "billig" without quotes
when you see Vol9 Brit Postmarks download the file

You will need to rotate the images when downloaded in your *.PDF reader  (usually 1 click)
Any problems holler back.

philatelicsannex.org/reference/reference.html

Admin


Did you know?...............

The reason why we bang heads here, trying to get members to place stamp posts in their parent folder
eg:   All "Portugal" stamps under   "Portugal : Stamps"
All GB Postmark stamp posts under  "Great Britain : Postmarks"    is for members the ability to build their own *.PDF  Library.

Go to any thread, let's say   ...........Canada : Cinderellas
In your computer, select "print" ,  select destination ..."print to PDF"

There you go, you have a mass of knowledge in one PDF. 

Squared Circle postmark from St. Buryan.  Sent to a collector.

zipper

Lovely.  Not in the Philatelic database.

A love letter, worth repeating, after 110 years
½d  (halfpenny drop rate) for his sweetheart in the same area  (Local)

Here’s a card for your selection,
Just to add to your collection,
As a proof of my affection,
With it, I wish, all your holidays,
Have been far from melancholy days,
But the brightest, and Jolly days.

Lots of Love BB

PS: I'd say a job lot of yours, it's in the same area as the SENNEN postmark.
PPS: Alsia Mill, would have been the Manorial Flour Mill, built in the 1600's , open for guests today.

Card dated August 30th 1905  (A Wednesday)
This day in history : US   US figures reveal 1 million immigrants arrived in the US in 1904