Thank you Nick for your additional information. As you may have guessed, I had forgotten that I had an R4 No 50 cover in my own collection that I also had reported to you. My cover with the South African Paquebot machine postmark is cancelled on 21/4 1941.

Thank you very much Mike!

Recently an RAF R4 censor cover was shown on the facebook-page of the Military Postal History Society. The owner of the cover wanted to know more about it, above all from where is was sent. The only information I could provide was that the R4 No 50 censor is unlisted in the "Censorship in the RAF 1918-1956" handbook.  I suggested that I would show the cover on this forum to see if anybody here can tell us more about this cover. Where was the "On service" machine cancellation in use?

The e-mail did not work unfortunately. But thank you anyway Neil for the information!

Best Regards Tommy

Thank you so much Neil for the information! I have seen references to Furfie´s book on rates before, I better find a copy of it soon.

Best regards Tommy

I wonder if anyone has more information regarding the wartime 15 cent surface mail rate from Ceylon? Between which dates was this rate in use? I bought this cover some time ago since I collect and exhibit the RAF R1 censor and this is a very late example of use of the R1 censor from Ceylon (30/8 1940). I would however also like to state between which dates the postage rate was in use in my exhibit. 

Tommy Samuelsson

Thank you Robert for helping me with this! I have studied the "Postal History of British Aden (1839-1967)" handbook by R.W. Pratt but did not find the 1939-1945 rates there. I did not know about the handbook by Michael Furfie but now that I am aware of its existence I will try to find a copy of it. I have a kind of similar handbook in my philatelic library on air mail rates, "Airmail operations during World War II" by Thomas H. Boyle Jr. It is a very comprehensive handbook but still some information is missing regarding the rates from some countries.

I am currently working on my RAF R1 censor exhibit, adding some new items as well as some new information. Among the new items is this No 64 censor from Aden, unlisted in the excellent RAF censorship handbook from 2015.The thing is that I am not only writing out the postal rates this time but also the first and last date that the rates were in use. I have been successful with both rates and periods of use for most of my items by studying handbooks from my own collection as well as from the library of the Swedish Postal museum. But for Aden, I have not been able to identify the weight interval for the 2 1/2 Annas rate and when this rate was in use. Can anyone help me here?

Thank you all for the information! I really appreciate your comments. Now I understand why I have not come across this mark in any censor handbooks. In the Stanley Gibbons postmark catalogue the inspectors mark is said to be "usually denoting an irregularity has been noted". Is this because the letter has no postmark? How common or uncommon are these inspectors marks on military mail?

I am looking for more information regarding the I.S. censor on this free mail letter from the BEF in France. All I know is that it is an abbreviation for Inland Services but does anyone have additional information or litterature references to this particular censor mark? I also have another cover with this censor mark in my collection where the letters and the triangle is of larger size.

Tommy Samuelsson

Frank and Nick, thank you both for making me a little wiser!


Best Regards Tommy Samuelsson

Hi!

I wonder if anyone knows anything about the dumb cancellation on this RAF type R1 censor cover, which I recently bought for my collection. Any information is most appreciated.


Best Regards Tommy Samuelsson