Battleship Revenue Stamps

Circle, typically the outer border of a circular date stamp; any precancel text immediately inside the outer border follows the circle symbol; a double space in this text (often between a name and a city or state) indicates a break in this text in which the remaining text starts in the opposite side of the circle in the opposite direction; there can also be a smaller circle within as shown in one example here

The lettering in following line, EXCLUDING any trailing punctuation, has a width of xx millimeters; this may occasionally be included to help differentiate very similar cancels. Trailing punctuation is not included because this can sometimes be difficult to see with weak stampings. The variance of the width of a typical hand stamped cancel is approximately 0.5 mm or less for decent stampings, and appears in many cases to vary with the amount of inking. Measurements have been avoided with smeared, distorted, or poor stampings. Printed cancels tend to have sharper edges, less ink "squeeze," and are sometimes estimated to the nearest quarter mm for heights in sources like the Chappell-Joyce reference. A convenient and recommended tool for easily measuring cancel dimensions in electronic images is the XnView software. An image can be easily rotated (Shift+O) to get the cancel visually level in the image, and then a box can be dragged to surround the cancel using the left mouse button. The dimensions of this box are shown in the bottom of the screen. Divide the box width by the image resolution (e.g., 300 dpi) and this is the width in inches. Multiply by 25.4 to get the width in mm.

The lettering in following line has a height of xx millimeters; this may occasionally be included to help differentiate very similar cancels. As mentioned above, the Chappell-Joyce listings sometimes estimate printed letter heights to the nearest quarter mm.

Lettering having serifs (e.g., most typically a Roman style such as "Times Roman"). The original BDR followed the Chappell-Joyce listings approach to describe printing fonts as primarily either "plain block type" or "serif." (Based on the widespread use of computer software for digital typography, the original BDR used the more familiar term of "sans serif" in place of "plain block type". This is described further in the next descriptor [ss] for sans serif.) Fonts, in the terminology of the Chappell-Joyce listings, are a scalable typeface for typography (the art and technique of arranging type for readability and appeal). The [s], or serif, fonts of Chappell-Joyce listings refer largely to "Roman" style lettering. ("Lettering" is an umbrella term for the art of drawing or creating letters, which in the case of hand stamps can be broader than the use of common typographic fonts.) In the recent online BDR project, [s] is used to describe any lettering which has the "Roman" style as its foundation. When a letter is viewed as individual pen strokes, these strokes are the "elements" of the letter. Roman lettering consists of thick and thin elements, and curved elements usually have a changing thickness (e.g., compare the thick sides of an 'O' with the thin top and bottom). Thickening of elements near their ends is also a feature of the serif (Roman) type [s]. Many cancels with Roman lettering having exaggerated differences in thickness were classified as a generic "calligraphic," or [c], type in the original BDR, but these are now simply included in the Roman typefaces designated [s] in the online BDR, and a new type [o] for other has introduced for lettering that is not [s] or [ss] (see below).

"Other" lettering types than the serif or sans serif(default) groups described above. These are based on artistic lettering or cursive writing styles other than Roman style lettering.

Lettering of small size

A common combination in circular date stamps in which the month, the date and the year are on three separate lines in this order; the month is usually capital letters sans serif and only the first three letters are used; the date is one or two digits; and the year is four digits; this is a short form for the following representation: mo/dd/yr

A diagonally oriented cancel; this term is reserved for cancels that appear to be consistently and deliberately stamped in a strongly diagonal rotation; this is not to be confused with a moderate amount of imprecision normally associated with handstamped cancels

Mostly diagonal in that most of the known cancels have the following features diagonal

Some vertical cancel orientations are known, but most are horizontal