Stamped!

Katie Grant, Collections Manager

Handstamps help postal workers ensure that a stamp placed on a letter cannot be reused, a process called “canceling.” While many post offices now have automated cancelling machines, all postal workers historically used inkpads and individual-sized stamps like these. The United States Postal Service marks them with the post office of origin and changeable date fields. Older ones like these were made out of metal, but now they are produced digitally.

The shaped vertical handle was also standard-issue, but postal workers often replaced these with a more ergonomical homemade option like the handles on the stamps from Swanton and Burlington. The longer, horizontal handle allowed for more efficient stamping and less wrist fatigue.

Handstamps also included a clue about the route letters would take. Look closely at the stamp marked “GROVE & W.R.Jc.” See the engraved “RMS”? Not only did items stamped with this originate in White River Junction, they also were bound for the Railway Mail Service. The RMS was a train system exclusively used to transport mail across the country by train. It was an important connection between Vermonters and the rest of the country for generations, allowing mail to be delivered faster over longer distances.

Postal workers on the RMS would ride the train all day, picking up, sorting, and delivering mail while crisscrossing the country. The postal worker who used these hand stamps worked in post offices all over Vermont, and on the RMS, for over sixty years. He and many others like him ensure that all our mail, including holiday cards, arrives efficiently and safely at their destinations.

Paul Howard recently donated these stamps and several other items to the Vermont Historical Society, and they're now on display at the Vermont History Museum in Barre.