page_title: Postmark
section_title: Valuation of cancellations
hierarchical_section_title: Postmark / Valuation of cancellations
caption_attribution_description: English: Austrian KK 5 kreuzer stamp, bilingual cancelled Mährisch Ostrau Stadt - Moravska Ostrava mesto in 1878 (Moravia)
context_page_description: A postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service. Modern postmarks are often applied simultaneously with the cancellation or killer that marks the postage stamp as having been used, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, if incorrectly. Postmarks may be applied by hand or by machines, using methods such as rollers or inkjets, while digital postmarks are a recent innovation. The local post Hawai'i Post had a rubber-stamp postmark, parts of which were hand-painted. At Hideaway Island, Vanuatu, the Underwater Post Office has an embossed postmark.
context_section_description: The study of postmarks is a specialized branch of philately called marcophily. It may bring added value to the stamps by their historical significance. Other parameters are the rarity and the attractiveness. In particular, the stamps issued by the Empire of Austria during the 1850–1867 period (the 5 issues before the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867), are collected for their variety and beauty. More details can be found in Valuation of cancellations of the Austrian Empire.
  A special or rare postmark can substantially add to the value of a stamp.  Also, in addition to everyday postmarks there are postmarks indicating the first day of issue of a particular stamp and pictorial cancellations commemorating local events, anniversaries, and the like' and slogan postmarks which advertise an event or pass information to the public.  (There has been a recent change to the term "pictorial postmarks" rather than "pictorial cancellations" by the USPS.)
  There are some examples of "faked covers" produced by philatelic forgers, most usually to increase their value, in which the postmark has been altered in some way; for example, by changing the date.
caption: Example of postmark with historical significance: bilingual in the Austrian monarchy Moravia province, 1878.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2012:12:29 16:06:38", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9076", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "368", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "426"}