Pictorial Postmarks: Worldwide

In the United States, pictorial markings to cancel stamps date back to the earliest days; however, the use of pictorial cancellations, now referred to as pictorial postmarks, are a modern phenomenon.

In 1958, then Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield announced that when the 3c Gardening and Horticulture stamp (Scott 1100) was released on March 15, 1958, the machine and hand cancellations would feature a reproduction of a bookplate used by Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey, a noted botanist, horticulturalist, and Cornell University professor. The stamp was to be issued at Ithaca, New York on the 100th anniversary of Dr. Bailey’s birth.

I don’t have a copy of the first pictorial first day of issue cancellation but the below cover provides an example of a pictorial first day cancellation used in the fall of 1958 on the 4c Forest Conservation stamp (Scott 1122) that features Smokey the Bear and the words “Keep America Green.”



The first known use of a pictorial cancellation that was not a First Day of Issue cancellation was authorized for use at the Smithsonian Station in Washington, DC beginning September 27, 1971, when the Headsville, West Virginia Post Office was re-established inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

The program expanded in the 1980s with temporary philatelic stations being set up and providing pictorial cancellations at state fairs, conventions, parades, and other locations of significant local interest, in addition to stamp shows, philatelic exhibitions and stamp dedications.

As of January 20, 2005, the Postal Service’s pictorial cancellation program’s name changed to the pictorial postmarks program and what were formerly called pictorial cancellations began to be referred to as pictorial postmarks.

*Postmark - the impression made by the post office or authorized mailer on a cover, typically indicating the date, time and place of mailing. Postmarks may be made by machine or handstamp. Postmarks are most commonly circular, but are also found as ovals, boxes, straight lines and spray ons. While postmarks are not cancels, they are sometimes used for that purpose, and the two terms are often and incorrectly used interchangeably.