Scott numbers have been used for the stamps unless otherwise indicated. Both single stamps and pieces bearing nice cancellations and complete covers / cards bearing nice cancellations (including transit and receiver postmarks when relevant) have been included in this "cancellation" listing. In the case of cancellations on individual stamps, the quality / centering of the stamp is stated separately from the quality / centering of the cancellation. In a postmark / cancellation context, the quality / centering of the cancellation is usually the dominant driver of the value. All of these items and many thousands more are available for viewing on approval. Please request approvals; due to lack of time, the vast majority of my Finnish cancellations and covers stock will never make it to the website or price lists.
Many cancellations will be listed (copied) by multiple methods of organization: By Town and/or By Type (for many, but not all types) and/or By Service (railway, ship, etc.). The By Type organization (web pages) has only been created for cancellation types that either older and/or typically exist for fewer towns and/or are particularly popular types. Thus some of bridge-style types and all the later single-ring types are usually only listed By Town. (I am willing to consider expanding the By Type organization if clients express serious interest in having such.) Finnish stamps used in Åland may be listed here in some cases, but the best places to look for those are in the completely separate listings of Åland covers and cancellations.
Cancellations starting with the letter "Å", "Ä" and "Ö" are at the end of the A-Z alphabet. Many Finnish cancellations, particularly on the western side of the country where Swedish is the dominant language, have both Finnish-language and Swedish-language spellings. When a cancellation includes both spellings, both will have been copied to their respective alphabetical order in this listing. However, Russian-language spellings have not been copied into this listing (look for those by the Finnish spelling). Additionally, some town name spellings have changed over time. For the purpose of this cancellation listing, the spelling actually in the cancellation has been used, thus if you are looking for a particular town, look in the appropriate multiple places each possible spelling might be located in the alphabet.
There is no single reference book for Finnish cancellations. In fact, for certain types of cancellations, there may be no published reference books at all. However, there is a book that lists all post office names, as well as several books that either list cancellations by type or, in certain cases, by region (Arctic, Lost Territories, Åland). Most of these books are long out of print, but I do sometimes have them available for sale. Please inquire regarding your specific interests. |
| Finnish railway station straight-line cancellations starting being used around 1862 and continued in use through the 1890s, but also a few were still in use through about 1917. These handstamp devices were used as station-name handstamps at railway stations. They were at least sometimes used on mail posted at that location, but were regularly used on railway freight stamps and related documents. The postal uses of these cancellations, on envelopes and cards, or loose postage stamps, in any time period, is quite scarce. The postmarks typically have fairly large, bold, serifed lettering (though some are known sans-serif), usually with all letters capitalized. (The railway station cancellations are larger and bolder than the typical examples of the more-often-seen "postal stopping place" straight-line cancellations.) I am not aware of a complete catalog listing for these railway station cancellations. (Please let me know if you are aware of a catalog listing of them.) The Finnish specialized catalogs sometimes mention them, at least of the general style of cancellations, associated with the Serpentine and 1875 stamp issues, but do not happen to mention them being used later (though some were). The book "Early Postmarks of Finland" by Gummesson, Ossa, and Stenberg (1974, published by LAPE; in Finnish, English, and German) lists and illustrates (ONLY) those examples of these cancellations known to be in use before 1875. The book is out of print, but I sometimes have examples in stock here. Additional railway stations, not listed in that book, continued to receive such canceling devices after 1875, but again, I do not know of a proper catalog listing of them. |
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