Cancellation
In postal use a cancellation is any type of mark made on a postage stamp, the part of a piece of postal stationery such as a stamped envelope[?] or postal card that indicates that postage was paid or how much postage was paid, or perhaps a meter label[?] (though typically a cancellation isn't required on a meter label), for the purpose of rendering the postage stamp or other form of indication postage has been paid, invalid and hopefully, from the point-of-view of the post office, unusable, for reuse.A cancellation must be distinguished from other postal markings, such as postmaster's provisionals[?], marks, generally from the pre-stamp period, to indicate prepayment of postage.
The earliest cancellations were pen cancels[?].
Stamp collectors like to see stamps which are either 'lightly cancelled' or which have 'bulls-eye cancellations'. Another phrase for 'bulls-eye cancellations' is 'socked on the nose,' the acronym for which is SON (see Bullseye Cancel Collectors' Club (http://www.jeffhayward.com/bccc/)).
A lightly cancelled stamp would have the postmark on a corner or small portion of the stamp. As lightly-cancelled stamps are in general more valuable than heavily-cancelled (exceptions, discussed below, may be bulls-eye cancellations and special or rare postmarks), collectors have at times rubber-stamped (or handwritten) "philatelic mail" or the like on their covers to get the postal clerk or mail processor to cancel the stamps lightly. (It was perhaps from concern that a conventional cancellation device would damage some of Tonga's early foil stamps that a rolling cancellation device was employed.)
A bulls-eye cancellation is a readable postmark which entirely or almost entirely is on the postage stamp. They are favored by stamp collectors because one can see the time, date, and location where the stamp was used.
In the early period of the issuance of postage stamps in the United States a number of patents were issued for cancelling devices or machines that increased (or were purported to increase) the difficulty of washing off and reusing postage stamps. These methods generally involved the scraping or cutting-away of part of the stamp, or perhaps punching a hole through its middle. (These forms of cancellation must be distinguished from perfins[?], a series of small holes punched in stamps, typically by private companies as an anti-theft device.)
Cancellations may either be applied by hand or machine (see The International Machine Cancel Society website (http://www.machinecancel.org/)).
In addition to everyday cancellations there are pictorial cancellations[?], which as the name suggests contain pictures or images associated with the commemoration of an event or anniversary. (Some people attempt to use stamps relating to the theme of a pictorial cancellation on the envelope (http://www.mcgees.org/postalcancel/postalcancelintro.shtml).) First day of issue of a stamp or piece of postal stationery is another type of cancellation.
See: numismatics
that those men which were the paynefull and personall trauellers might
and further that euery man might answere for himselfe, iustifie his
voyage to his Author, which both in person hath performed, and in writing
Peregrinationis historia, and not those wearie volumes bearing the titles
as their owne, beyng in deed most vntruly and vnprofitablie ramassed and
discouerie of the world.
Moreouer, I meddle in this worke with the Nauigations onely of our owne
required) some strangers as witnesses of the things done yet are they none
trauels of our owne people: of whom (to speake trueth) I haue receiued more
this case, Bale, Foxe, and Eden onely excepted.
And it is a thing withall principally to be considered that I stand not
frequented by our shipping, as for example: Not vpon that victorious
Spanish army vnder the valiant and prouident conduct of the right
good seruices of our two woorthie Generals in their late Portugall
Chieftaine Sir Frauncis Drake, the one in the Baie of Cales vpon a great
great Carrack of the East India, the first (though peraduenture not the
portes: these (albeit singular and happy voyages of our renowmed
prescribed limites, beyng neither of remote length and spaciousnesse,
this my labour. [Footnote: Halkuyt afterwards, in his second edition, did
I haue disposed and digested the whole worke into 3. partes, or as it were
voyages of any moment that haue bene performed to the South and Southeast
neerest, and of the rest hithermost towards vs: For I find that the oldest
to Iudea which is in Asia, termed by them the Holy land, principally for
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