Postmark Definition

Abbrevations and explanation of text and characters  used

• ERD - Earliest Recorded Date
• LRD - Latest Recorded Date
• N.R. - Not Recorded
• S.O. -  Still Open
• S.U. - Still Used
• c.d.s. - Circular Date Stamp
• #      - First or last possible date for a postmark. Generally used for 'A' (last date) and 'B3' (first date)cancellations.
• Code - i s the time code for a postmark. 'A' is earliest time of a day and 'D' is latest time of the day. Some post offices used numbers instead of letters, where '1' is earliest and '5' is latest time of a day. During the 1950's most offices changed to a readable time, eg '10.30 AM' or '3.30 PM'.
• NO - Cancellation does not have a time code.
• Notation of dates used on this site:  First numeral is day followed by month and year with 2 figures. "010125" means 1st of January 1925.
  
• Cancellation type serial number When more than one cancellation type exist for a post office and they are similar, i.e. they are not distinguished in the definition table above. Then they will get a dash followed by a serial number after cancellation type. If for instance there exist two "C1" cancellation the first will be called "C1-1" and the second will be called "C1-2" in chronological order.
• If a postmark is used during two time periods with a time gap in between, the first period cancellation will be call 'i ' and second period called 'ii' and so on. If a cancellation "C1-1" is used during two periods the first will be called "C1-1i" and the second will be called "C1-1ii".
  
• The dates mentioned for each cancellation type originates from the book "THE POSTAL HISTORY OF MAURITIUS" chapter 4 written by Edward B. Proud published 2001. Latest date used is 11.3.1968. The site may contain dates later than that but with a cancellation type defined as used before 11 March 1968.