Early 20th Century Hawaiian Auxiliary Postal Handstamps Paperback – August 16, 2025

Since the postal system began, postal agencies have found a need for handstamp devices to provide notification beyond just cancelling postage stamps. Handstamps were intended to be primarily instructive and included such messages as: “postage due,” “return to sender,” “dead letter office,” etc. This book studies these markings by examining auxiliary handstamps to and from Hawaii during the early 20th Century (i.e., 1900 to about 1955).To understand auxiliary handstamps, included are two definitions, one by the United States Stamp Society, and the other by the Auxiliary Marking Club:“Postal marking applied to covers indicating that the covers were given special attention due to some special circumstance."“Postal marking applied to covers by handstamp, machine cancellation, a stick-on label, manuscript markings, or by mechanical or electronic methods such as addressograph or computer, indicating that the covers were given special attention due to some special circumstance.”The book includes both postally-applied auxiliary markings and non-postal markings. This study reveals that at a time when the industrial revolution was in full swing, where postal service was undergoing a number of advances with automated postal cancelling (i.e., Doane’s and Doremus machine cancels), the post office continued the practice of hand stamping mail matter to give notice to the sender or recipient.The 1900 to 1955 period was chosen because in 1900, the United States enacted the Organic Act (Chapter 339, 31 Stat. 141 § 67). The Act established the Hawaiian Islands as a territory of the United States. Correspondingly, post offices were under the control of the United States.Handstamps are listed in alphabetical order on a first-word basis. In addition to postal service handstamps, some postally-related militaria handstamps are included. Excluded from the article are the following: first day issues, Foreign Air Mail (FAM routes) handstamps, Paque boat handstamps, illustrated advertising, pre- printed envelope text, philatelic cachets, personal handstamps, and the like. Read more