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Bought this superb used 1913 First Watermark 5/- Kangaroo, and it reminded me of the weird story of the "ENGLISH MAIL OUT" TPO (travelling post office) .. where mail was rushed by train to Adelaide beating the boat sail time by a day or so!

So, what was the "English Mail" TPO cancel in Victoria used for? -

Since the time required for the train to go from Melbourne to Adelaide was significantly shorter than the time it took the ships to travel that distance, it became possible to post mail for England as much as several days after the mail ship had departed, and still catch the ship at Adelaide.

The mails that were delivered in this manner were sorted in a specially designated ship mail room at the GPO and cancelled with a special postmark. The system was used widely and continued for some years.

The mail ships would anchor at Largs Bay in Adelaide, awaiting the arrival of the mail trains from Melbourne before departing for England.

Added this striking perfin piece to stock today. 1913 Roos to 1/- used on Tri-Colour Registered parcel fragment - $A175

Sexy looking piece from a Registered parcel mailed 109 years back.

Eye-catching THREE COLOUR Roo franking - 1d red, 6d Blue, and 1/- Green, all on a neat linen backed piece, to resist tearing, from a large size Registered Envelope, presumably containing a stack of loan documents.

Paying the ‘PRINTED MATTER’ concessional rate to UK, that was introduced on May 1, 1911, of 1d per 4 ounces. So we had here a 56 ounce packet, or about 1.6 kilo, which came to 1/4d post, plus the 3d Registered fee, taking us up to this super scarce 1/7d rate.

All tied by sought after cds ‘ENGLISH MAIL TPO - OUT - 10 NOV - 13 - VICTORIA’. This special cancel was used on the outward steamer mail to the UK that was rushed overland from Melbourne to Adelaide by Train to catch these steamers leaving Largs Bay, and is widely collected in its own right.

The 6d and 1/- are RARE beasts, even SINGLE used on parcel fragment. ACSC has the 1/- on parcel fragment at cat $1,250 even used in conjunction with other stamps. (The 6d is also cat $600 thus!)

An eye catching 3 colour franking, in nice clean condition. Almost certainly UNIQUE when paying the seldom seen 1/7d rate.

Even better, all 3 stamps have the very fine hole private perfin of ‘NZL’ of New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co Limited – Matthews cat NZL.1, that was first used in 1906. The perfin holes are so fine I missed them entirely until scanned! So private perfins on such a piece double the value at least, as they are truly rare, and are increasingly being collected here. Cat $A175 (Stock 589LJ)

Glen

Could this be one of these "English Mail" cancels?
Dated midway during April somewhere between 1901 – 1909 I'm guessing.

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So spent a good half hour looking for a Victorian town called ‘English Manor’ (?) in Freeman.

Until I realised it was ‘English Mail’

From a batch I have been sorting through - a cool pair that deserves to be here.