# Backstamp

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{{Short description|Postal marking}}
{{refimprove|date=November 2018}}
{{For|Backstamps on porcelain|Factory mark}}
[[Image:Cover Canada 1932 Rae air back.jpg|upright=1.25|thumb|This reverse of a 1932 cover sent from Rae in the [Northwest Territories](/source/Northwest_Territories) (now [Behchoko](/source/Behchoko)) to [Toms River, New Jersey](/source/Toms_River%2C_New_Jersey), has a Toms River backstamp.]]

In [philately](/source/philately) a '''backstamp''' is a [postmark](/source/postmark) on the back of a [letter](/source/cover_(philately)) showing a post office or station through which the item passed in transit.<ref>{{cite web |last=Scheer |first=Frank |title=Mute oval canceling device handstamp |publisher=[National Postal Museum](/source/National_Postal_Museum) |date=18 April 2006 |url=http://arago.si.edu/record_52376_img_1.html |accessdate=23 January 2016 }}</ref> The office of delivery may also backstamp a cover and this type of mark is known as a '''receiving mark'''. It provided a way to track the route of a letter, simplifying the overall process of mailing.

Backstamps are often applied as documentation of transit times, lengthy ones in the case of ocean crossings or short ones in the case of [airmail](/source/airmail) flights. [Registered mail](/source/Registered_mail) is often backstamped in order to show the [chain of custody](/source/chain_of_custody).

Mail that has had complex routings can have a dozen or more backstamps. Although such covers may look positively blackened with the overlapping marks, they are not common and so are highly valued by collectors of [postal history](/source/postal_history), being described as "well travelled".

==References==
{{reflist}}

Category:Philatelic terminology
Category:Postal markings

{{Philately-stub}}

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