U.S. Postal Station Cancels

Well, thanks to the forum administrator, the postal station cancels thread is on its way.  Here's a 1909 flag cancel from Portland, Maine's West End Station on an advertising post card.  I wonder if it is still in operation under the same name?

Don Stamphinger

Hi jeff:

I can't do a picture post card at this time, but I do have this 1941 cover dedicating Benson Station in Omaha, Nebraska.  While now in the Omaha metro area, Benson was once a community on what was known as the Military Highway.  I worked in the Omaha Post Office in the early 1960s, but was never assigned to Benson Station.  I bought this cover at the APS national show in Omaha in August, 2019. The station looks much the same today as in the photo cachet of the cover. 

Don StampHinger

This cover out of my shoe box collection with three collecting points for me, the cinderella (Tide Water Associated Oil Company) on cover, a bullseye cancel on the stamp, and a clear postal station cancel from the Bronx.  Does anyone know, is there a catalog for station cancels? 

Dpn Stamphinger.

A cover posted May 17, 1938, at Evansville, Indiana' Station C, during National Air Mail Week, with the station designation in the cancel dial.  I purchased this cover not for its cancel, but for the image of the Douglas DC 4E, the aircraft in the center of the cachet. 

Douglas designed the DC 4E at the request of U.S. airlines who wanted an airplane as reliable and economical to operate as the DC 3, but one that would carry more passengers and fly at higher altitudes with more speed.  The result was the DC 4E with its tricycle landing gear (an innovation at the time), four engines, 42 passenger capacity, a 200 mph cruise,  and 22,900 feet service ceiling. 

Aircraft aficionados will note, however, that the airplane in the cachet is not the DC 4 that served so well during WW II and postwar with the airlines.  The one in the cachet has three stubby vertical stabilizers instead of the single one on the production DC 4.  The three short vertical stabilizers were necessary to allow the airplane to enter most of the hangars available in the mid-1930s and to increase directional control when flying with only two engines on one side.  The DC 4E first flew on June 7, 1938.  As designed, the DC 4E was a high maintenance aircraft and it had some control issues.  Consequently, the DC 4E design didn't enter production, but its successor the DC 4, basically the same aircraft with modifications, was highly successful. 

Don Stamphinger

An internet photo of the DC 4E in flight.

A cover acquired for my John Coulthard cachet collection, but qualifying for this thread by its USS Swallow Puget Sound Navy Yard cancel. Its reverse also has a Bremerton, WA, Navy Yard Station machine cancel.  USS Swallow was an old WW I era minesweeper that came to a bad end when it ran aground at Kanaga Island, Alaska Territory, in 1938.  Salvage efforts were unsuccessful and the ship was abandoned and stricken from the Navy rolls in May, 1938. 

Don StampHinger