Bobstamp

06 May 2024
02:02:58am

Here’s a fun astronomy note. A couple of years ago I bought this stamp on piece to include in my “Stars on Stamps” collection, not for the stamp, nice as it is, but for the name of post office indicated in the circle date stamp cancellation: SOUTHERN CROSS, a pioneer gold-mining town in Western Australia named for the constellation of the same name. Not-so-close examination of the 1906 cancellation shows that there wasn’t enough room to include the“CROSS,” so a small cross was used instead.



The Southern Cross placename came about this way, according to the Aussie Towns website:

It is hard to imagine a more romantic name. Southern Cross was reputedly named after the famous constellation which Thomas Risely and Mick Toomey, who discovered the gold which led to the settlement of the area, claimed had led to their discovery. They named the goldfield Southern Cross and the name of the town followed. In his writings Thomas Risely recorded: ‘Myself, Toomey and Charlie Crossland, started out from our camp at Barcoyton. After prospecting the belt for some days our water gave out. Our blackboy whom I call Wheelbarrow, said he knew plenty of Gabby (water) at Koorkoordine. When we got to Koorkoordine we found one of Hunt’s dry wells, just as dry as we were. We decided to start back through the night and return to our camp, distance about 40 miles, and we travelled by the Southern Cross — taken to stars to the north — thanks to Charlie Crossland’s knowledge of the stars. Or our bones would be bleaching in the scrub now, as we were two days without water at this time. We had to remain at our camp until rains came, then myself and Mick Toomey set out again. We discovered gold four miles from Koorkoordine. I named the place Southern Cross.

I don’t recall what I paid for the stamp, but apparently it’s not common, hence the note “NOT PREV. RECORDED” (in philatelic literature). The “FINE BULLSEYE” refers to the centring of the cancellatio , also known as SON or Sock-On-the-Nose cancellation. Finds like this are certainly one of the pleasures of collecting. Here’s a larger image of the stamp:



I think that the cross symbol in the cancellation was handmade. It looks like the designer added dots to the “arms” of the cross to represent the constellation’s primary stars.

Southern Cross (the community) looks to be almost mythical. From the website mentioned above:

Today it is a quiet town notable more for its wide streets, its large pub on the Great Eastern Highway, and its interesting museum. One of the town's charming qualities is that the stellar Southern Cross associations have led to other 'star inspired' streets including Sirius Street, Altair Street, Centaur Street, Orion Street, Taurus Street, Polaris Street, Spica Street and Phoenix Street.

I’m familiar with those all of those names of stars and constellations, except for Phoenix. That’s a new one to me.

Back to the Southern Cross constellation: While the Southern Cross is considered to be a constellation of earth’s southern hemisphere, it can sometimes be seen from the northern hemisphere:

Crux is easily visible from the southern hemisphere, south of 35th parallel at practically any time of year as circumpolar. It is also visible near the horizon from tropical latitudes of the northern hemisphere for a few hours every night during the northern winter and spring. For instance, it is visible from Cancun or any other place at latitude 25° N or less at around 10 pm at the end of April. There are 5 main stars. Due to precession, Crux will move closer to the South Pole in the next millennia, up to 67 degrees south declination for the middle of the constellation. However, by the year 14,000 Crux will be visible for most parts of Europe and continental United States which will extend to North Europe by the year 18,000 as it will be less than 30 degrees south declination. — Wikipedia

Here are two stamps from my collection, with an astrophoto of the Southern Cross:



From the left, above: the first stamp ever to feature an scientifically accurate image of any
astronomical object, in this case the Southern Cross, issued by Brazil in 1887; an astrophoto
of the Southern Cross, and a Victoria stamp issued in 1901.

Finally, my web page, (link)https://www.ephemeraltreasures.net/stars-on-stamps.html,Stars on Stamps(/link) shows the wide array of astronomically themed stamps and covers that are available to collectors who can’t keep their eyes off the night sky.

So, now, help me out, please!:

• Because the stamp is on piece and should not be soaked off (that would destroy part of the cancellation), I have no idea what its watermark is. The stamp's perforations measurement is 12X12 ½, which fits only two possible stamps, #76, (1902-1905) and #90 (1905-1912). In the absence of information about the stamp's watermarks, accurate identification seems impossible. Two earlier face-identical stamps, #62 (1890-1893), and #73 (1899-1901), are perf 14. Am I missing something?

• I’m curious about the penned notation on the card:

“DX PO (or DX PD?)
IN NIL.”

Any idea what that means?

Bob

 
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re: Southern Cross, Western Australia postmark

Hi Bob

Not quite finished my search for an answer. I have zero knowledge of post marks and about the same of Western Australia stamps. So I am working from an old catalogue and some info on the net.

But as an interim reply your stamp is from what is known as the "Early Federal Period" which ran from the beginning of 1901 (Australian Federation) until the first Federal definitive issue, the Kangaroo and Map series in 1913.

It is the 1905 issue when a new die for the one penny was introduced known as Die 2.

Your stamp has only half of the original post mark which was of the duplex type.

The written remarks seem to be the canceller type Dx for Duplex, PO for Post Office. 'in' seems to be incidence and Nil probably means no copies seen.

Here is the site where I found the post mark info "http://www.wastudygroup.com/postal-markings-illustrated/" . Your cancel is mentioned in the Preface and letters Q to S. Not sure if the group which owns this site is still active but if they are they might be interested in seeing your stamp.

I hope to give more on the stamp itself but have a bit more reading to do.

Regards
Frank

 
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Linus

12 May 2024
08:33:19am

re: Southern Cross, Western Australia postmark

Bob -

"In" stands for "Index"

This means that the postmark can be found Index A, Index B, Index C, and Index D.

The example of the full postmark you show, is Index D, as there is a letter D just below the TH of the word SOUTHERN.

Back to your stamp in the OP, it has no index letter in your cancel at all, hence they are calling it IN NIL, or no index. I think what the note is saying is that this cancel without any index is previously unrecorded, with exclamation point. How rare it is will take further research in this area of study.

Hope this helps,

Linus

 
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