The C&NW System's Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway

The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway

The CStPM&ORy was a part of the Chicago & Northwestern System of Railroads, and like all the C&NW roads, the company printed and used precancels on the one cent battleship documentary stamp.  While the characteristics of the printed cancels of this railroad vary over the tax period, categorizing the stamps by year date (or lack thereof) provides a mutually exclusive way to disaggregate the four main types of cancels.  So rather than assign types to these cancels, it is adequate to break them down according to date.  Cancels may be found with no date, and dated 1899, 1900, and 1901, such that there are four main collectible cancels.  All undated and 1899 cancelled stamps are found with roulettes; 1900 and 1901 are found with hyphen-hole perforations.

Both the undated and 1899 cancels have solid lines for adding a manuscript or handstamped date.

Undated:

C. St. P. M. & O.

Ry. Co

________        

Dated 1899:

C. St. P. M. & O.

Ry. Co.

_________1899.

Both the 1900 and 1901 cancels have dotted lines for adding a manuscript or handstamped date.

Dated 1900:

C. St. P. M. & O.

Ry. Co.

..................1900

 Dated 1901:

C. St. P. M. & O.

Ry. Co.

..................1901

CSt.PM&O Railway Varieties

Invert:  There is a reported invert of the 1900 dated CStPM&O cancel.  This author has not seen or been able to verify this variety.

Split Cancel:  Below is a vertical split cancel.  The line for the manuscript or handstamped date is at the top edge of the stamp design rather than at the bottom of the stamp.  

__________        

C. St. P. M. & O.

Ry. Co.

Missing type:  the stamp below is missing a section of its dateline.  The image of the stamp has been cropped from the larger block of 12 below.  As stated in the previous post on C&NW varieties, this condition should be considered more of a curiousity than anything seriously collectible.

Multiples of documentary printed are relatively scarce, except for those of the International & Great Northern.  Here are two fairly large multiples from 1899 and 1900:

1899 block of 12 with partial plate number in the partial selvage of bottom left stamp:

The stamp with the missing line type is on the bottom row, 3rd from left.  The cancels on the three stamps in the vertical column at the far left of the block are not in line on the horizontal with the cancels on the rest of the block.  A close up of the misalignment is below:

1900 block of 10: