International Cuban Philatelic Society

10/24/2025

CENTROS DE HOJA - the first issues, 1926.

10/24/2025

INTERNATIONAL MACHINE CANCELS
From 1911 until the Slogan Cancellations began in 1924, the International Machine became the standard cancellation in Cuba. It consisted of a place/date/time stamp on the left and seven wavy lines on the right across the stamp. Even after the advent of the slogan cancellations the International place/date/time stamp continued through the years of the Republic.
From 1911 until around 1917 it also included a single letter code to indicate how the piece of mail was being handled. The code was:
C = First received from a collection box.
D = Dropped off at the post office.
R = Received from another source.
T = In transit.
Little information of value was obtained using this coding system, so it was discontinued after a brief period. If you have further information on this coding system, please let me know.
Here are examples of each code:

08/31/2023

I find the collection of postal card varieties interesting. Here is a card from 1882. Because they were typeset with individual letters and spacing composing a block to be printed, there are small variations from one to the next. These cards were printed in blocks of 16, then cut. Accordingly, you can find and collect 16 variations. Reprinting year after year caused still more variations when a letter would break, for instance. So, in addition to the 16 variations there were what we call temporary variations.
In this example one sees a rounded “A” on ESPAÑA which happens to be the Type 12 variation. This was at least the fourth reprinting of this card and for some reason a raised period after ULTRAMAR appears for the first time giving rise to a T-4 temporary variation on the card.
For much more information on card variations, go to:
http://www.cubafil.org/MemberPages/RobertLittrell/PC/1880-82UPUvariations.html

01/25/2023

I have always liked Cinderellas. Here are a few. Please add to this if you have something interesting. And yes, I know the "Pro Calles" stamps are not Cinderellas, but unusual nevertheless.

01/25/2023

I have collected perfin postal patterns from Cuba for the past 15 years. During that time I have been able to find and collect only 5 of the Monroe & Co. (M/&CO) pattern thru thorough searching. The others that are quite scarce, only a handful in existence, are Acosta & Company (A&C) which was only recently identified by a one-of-a-kind cover, Enrique Armaignac (EA) of Santiago, José Llano (JLL), Odriozola y Cia (O&C) of Cienfuegos, Quinones Hardware Company (QHC) which was also only identified by a single cover. Then you get into the more common, but still hard to find patterns such as Armour & Co., Empresa Naviera, Frank Robins Co., New York Life and National Paper & Type Co. About the only common perfins here are National City Bank (NCB), Droguería Sarrá (SA/RRA) and Ricardo Veloso & Co. (RV/&/Co.)

02/07/2022

Before visiting the National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, it never occurred to me how the Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre in Madrid, Spain, would send postal cards to the colonies. It was there that I saw and photographed these packets of 200 postal cards bundled together with twine. I was able to examine a bundle that had been opened and found that all of the cards were of the same cliché or variety. This means that a stack of 200 uncut sheets were cut and each pile became a separate bundle.

02/07/2022

01/25/2022

The 1904 Martí postal card was printed many times until it was replaced in 1955. The result of the use of plates over this period of time caused many plate errors and varieties. Here are the varieties that Octavio Cabrera and I have found.

01/20/2022

Here is the complete listings of the postal stationery overprint series of 1899 and Columbus series of 1903 with cross references to four catalogs: UPSS, Edifil, Scott and H&G. I have added an envelope guide which depicts the U.S. envelopes used in these two printings.

01/20/2022

POSTAL STATIONERY - 1899 Overprint Series of 10 envelopes.

01/06/2022

EARLY MACHINE CANCELLATIONS.

12/29/2021

Best of both worlds: This Cuban 1899 1 centavo postal stationery envelope is a nice addition to a collection. Used Miró y Ortero corner cards are hard to find.
But to top that off, take a look at the cancellation. It is a Hampden Machine Cancel which was only in use for about a month near the end of 1899 making this a prize not only for a postal stationery collector, but also to the collector of machine cancellations.