Foreign Mail (Roman-Letter) Roller Postmarks

by Alan Cowie

(a) In Vertical Format

Before World War II, there were two types with variant groups ( PAQUEBOT and ‘SHAVED PAQUEBOT’ ).

Type 1: Markings used between 1 Oct 1910 and 19 April 1934 were distinguished by the inclusion the word JAPAN or the abbreviated form IJPO.
Type 2: After 19 April 1934 the word or NIPPON or INPO was used .

(b) In Horizontal Format:

Three Types – post 1 October 1952.

Type A with a 4-digit year: (Listing)
Type B with 2-digit year from 1 January 1964, further categorized as
B1 without preceding postal code (Listing) and
B2 with preceding postal code (Listing)

Type C with a parallelogram shape and 2-digit year since 30 Nov 1990,
further categorized as:
C1 without preceding postal code (Listing) and
C2 with preceding postal code (Listing)

Note: Both C1 and C2 also exist with underlined year digits . The underlined year was in use in the years 2007 to 2012. The list currently has 63 entries of different post office cancels where the year is underlined. (Listing)

References

JP Vol 69 No 5 : ” The Underlined Years: Foreign Mail Roller Update” pages 265-266
JP Vol 76 No 2 : ” The Underlined Year : Foreign mail Roller Update”, pages 70 – 71