Waterbury, Ct - 1867

September 9, 1867 Waterbury, Ct

crossed bats and bases fancy cancel

Several post office began using cork bottle stoppers dipped in ink to cancel postage stamps on envelopes. Eventually some of the clerks began to carve designs into the cork, including crosses, animals, geometric shapes or whatever their imagination allowed

The Waterbury, Connecticut post office was the master of this practice, creating designs for holidays and special occasions. The baseball cancel was created by postmaster John W. Hill to commemorate the Waterbury Excelsior's victory over the Naugatuck Valley Nine on July 24, 1867. Their are none to be 6 envelopes dated between September 2 and 10, 1867 to exist

John W. Hill enlisted into the service during the Civil War serving as postmaster for his regiment. On returning to Waterbury he took a job as postal clerk. Hill kept busy by creating the finest collection of fancy cancel to be used on envelopes

 Alexander cachet

Commemorative stamp show pictorial postmarks using the baseball fancy cancel

souvenir card

Waterbury Giants

Waterbury has a great history of minor league baseball going back to 1884 playing in the Connecticut state League. The Waterbury Giants were a franchise of the New York Giants from 1977-1978, participating in the Eastern League

references-links
Wikipedia - fancy cancel
Robert Siegel Auctions
Atlas Oscura
The Swedish Tiger