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Welcome to the website of the PHSC

Here's what's new!

December 2011

• The Fall 2011 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal page.

• Post offices of Assiniboia have been added.

• Forty (40) new covers from one owner's holding have been added to the 1902 Experimental Machine listing, along with scans of each.

• Please join us in celebrating the fourth anniversary of the creation of the PHSC website, December 11, 2007.

• Elgin County aficionados will want to note that there is now a CDS database available. Your reports of new dates are desperately needed.

November 2011

• The districts of Timiskaming and Cochrane, as well as the county of Essex, have recently been added to the emerging CDS database. Check it out and make your reports of dates or missing items!

September 2011

• A short report and exhibit on the 1948 experimental duplex and CDS postmarks supplied by Pitney-Bowes is now available in the Research/Articles area.

• We have restarted work on the development of a database of circular date stamp (CDS) postmarks. Initially, the database will include those items that had proof strikes taken, but of course there are many more CDS postmarks than that in existence. This is where we could really use your help! We will build the database, starting with Ontario, county by county, and add other provinces and territories as they become available. If you have items that are not in the database, please report them. To begin, we have Kent county and Algoma district from Ontario, as well as Assinaboia. See the Postmarks/CDS page.

• The Summer 2011 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal page.

August 2011

• An introduction to the Post Office databases, as well as notes on former and current types of post offices, is now available at the Post Offices area.

Now available: case bound and perfect bound copies of the Steinhart Rates book. Information on the case bound version is in the ad at right; click on the ad for information about the perfect bound edition. The case bound version will be available for a limited time only.

July 2011

• Those of you who use the Post Office database regularly may be interested to know that you can now search by (part of a) town name, postal code, moon number or RC number. Any of these may be typed into the search box.

• An archive of the newsletters of the Canadian Meter Study Group is now available in the Study Groups area. Active from 1981-2005, this includes a wealth of material on the subject. Also available is an index for the newsletters and a pdf of the CMSG Catalogue, which predates Ross Irwin's Canadian Meter Postage Stamp Catalogue, 3rd ed., but contains much useful additional information.

• A webpage with useful postal history links has been started. We will enlarge this page over time.

• Users of Internet Explorer will notice that the login has been moved to the top of the sidebar. If the login is not visible, click on the green banner to return to the main page. This has been done to counteract a bug in Microsoft's software.

• An updated Author Guidelines document has been created to simplify the interactions between authors and the Journal editor. See the Author Guidelines page. This link is also available in the Member Utilities section of the main sidebar.

June 2011

• The Spring 2011 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal page.

May 2011

Did you know? You can help out by reporting new items or new dates. At the bottom of the righthand sidebar on each of the database pages is a link "Make Report" that will fill you in on how to do it. No piece of information is inconsequential!

• A new database for barrel postmarks has been created, based on a spreadsheet created by Dave Oberholtzer and Bob Smith. This will be continuously updated as new reports come in. The database can be accessed on the Barrel Rollers study group page.

March 2011

• The Winter 2011 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal page.

February 2011

• A searchable index of articles concerning Canadian machine cancels has been installed in the Postmarks:Machines area. Nearly 400 such articles are indexed at present. The index was prepared by Rob Leigh.

• The HA Harmers Auction catalogue of the 2005 sale of The Allan L. Steinhart Collection of Prestamp and Stampless Covers To, From and Through British North America 1685-1865 is now available at the Allan L Steinhart Memorial Website, courtesy of Harmers. This is an interactive pdf, with links to the sale's website.

• Now available is Steinhart's opus on the rates and routes of British North America and Canada that has been edited and brought to completion by Gray Scrimgeour. This is a major contribution to Canadian postal history, and will be the standard reference on the subject for years to come. Available for download to PHSC members at the Allan L Steinhart Memorial Website.

• A new exhibit titled 'Canadian Registration, 1911-1947' by David Handelman is now in the Research:Exhibits area.

January 2011

• A new exhibit on Parcel Cards by David Handelman is now in the Research:Exhibits area.

Did you know? That arrow icon that is always present on the right side of the page header (beside the Log In/Out link) is used to toggle the sidebar in and out of view. It's especially useful when using and modifying searches of the on-line databases. Try it out! You can find other tips in the How-to area.

• An overhaul of some areas of the website have been completed. You might notice the new buttons "Journal" and "Research" that now appear on the masthead. (Clearing your browser's cache might be necessary.) The Journal button leads directly to the latest issue of the Journal and the interface for searching the index of back issues. The Research area collects together all aspects of postal history research that do not have their own dedicated areas. This now includes the Allan L. Steinhart Memorial Website, as well as webpages dedicated to PHSC publications, our Rates study, our collection of on-line Exhibits and a selection of research articles. We hope that this organization will be easy to use and navigate. Please note that we have updated all of the links on the What's New page to reflect these changes.

• Gray Scrimgeour has recently remastered Steinhart's British North America and Great Britain 1838--1865, a display of transatlantic covers running well over 300 pages. Scans of covers will be upgraded to colour when they are available (check your collections!!). Although we do not expect to release this book in hardcopy, a downloadable pdf is available to (logged-in) PHSC members in the Research:PHSC Books area as well as on the Allan L. Steinhart Memorial Website.

• A page about Perfection machine cancels used in Canada has been created. See the Postmarks:Machines area.

December 2010

• The Fall 2010 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Library.

October 2010

• A major exhibit has been installed in the Research:Exhibits area of our website. This is the incredible collection of early BNA stampless covers of Allan Steinhart that was put together for CAPEX 96. Gray Scrimgeour has carefully resurrected the exhibit for display on our website. See his introduction (pdf; 94kB) for more information.

• The Summer 2010 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal area.

August 2010

• Posted a new exhibit titled "The 1929 Mackenzie River Air Mails" by Kevin O'Reilly in the Research:Exhibits area.

July 2010

Did you know? That arrow icon that is always present on the right side of the page header (beside the Log In/Out link) is used to toggle the sidebar in and out of view. It's especially useful when using and modifying searches of the on-line databases. Try it out! You can find other tips in the How-to area.

• A monograph by David Handelman entitled "Soldiers' Letters to or from Canada 1802-1841" is now available in the Research section.

• The International machine database of the IMCRSC is now available. This can be accessed either by navigating to the IMCRSC Study Group or by looking in the Postmarks section, under Machines. See the main IMCRSC page for instructions on how to access the data. A primer on the International machines is also available there.

June 2010

• The Spring 2010 issue of the PHSC Journal is now available. See the Journal area.

• The first sixty-five back-issues of the Northern Study Group newsletter The Northerner are now available to all PHSC members! There's lots of interesting material here for postmark, postcard, etc. collectors.

May 2010

• Repairing an inadvertent omission, a webpage describing a Saskatchewan Post Cards project is now available from the Northern Study Group.
A Significant Anniversary!
Maggie Toms, PHSC member #66, has been a member of the Society since 1972, the year of its founding as the Postal History Society of Ontario. On May 18, 2010 she will be celebrating her 100th birthday. The Society wishes her well on this memorable occasion.


April 2010

• Posted a new exhibit titled "District of Athabaska" by Gray Scrimgeour in the Research:Exhibits area.

March 2010

• Some minor work on the Coutts slogan database has been completed -- repaired a systematic problem with earliest and latest dates.

• Spring break has offered more time to get things done! The Library section of the website has been overhauled and re-organized. We have introduced a new exhibits project, with the intention of showing exhibits related to Canadian postal history. The first exhibits that have been prepared are "Hamilton Bickerdikes" by Stéphane Cloutier and "Small-town Ontario Post Offices" by Bob Smith.

• The on-line edition of Issue 140 of the PHSC Journal is now available.

• much new work has been done on the Manitoba broken circles.

February 2010

Allan Steinhart's CSN articles, in the Research:Articles area

• the complete database of slogan cancels developed and previously published by Cecil Coutts. Fully searchable and customizable, including early and late dates of use. Find this in the Postmarks:Machines area.

• a new on-line PHSC publication written by Bob Smith on the barrel postmarks of Canada. Find it in the Study Groups/Barrel area.

January 2010

• a new database of the early 2-ring and 4-ring numeral cancels of Canada. Find this in the Postmarks:Numeral area.

December 2009

• a listing of the 1902 Montreal Experimental machines, with a time-line of recorded usage.