Postmark Picks: Belgian Railways flip-flop

One of my favorite areas of postmarks to collect are the postmarks on Belgium railway stamps.  They are generally dark and socked-on-the-nose, to the point where they just looked like damaged stamps to most collectors.  And you can find large quantities easily.

For a while, their classic ticket-shaped postmarks had some real ambiguity in the year.  This one looks like 1934:


But it's really the hour (19) and two-digit year (34).  This one looks odd, as we know there were no postage stamps in the year 947, but "-947" is again the hour and year.


If you could trust that this was always the case, you could figure this out at a glance:

It would be hour 18, year (19)13.  But it's hard to be sure.  Because sometimes, the year does come first:

(19)53, hour 16.  Why?  Pick a format and be consistent.  In case you're thinking it just changed over time, here's one from the same exact year AND hour, flip-flopped:

I have no technical data or secrets to share here.  It's just a quirky thing that haunts my favorite area of postmark collecting.


 

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