Backstamp

This reverse of a 1932 cover sent from Rae in the Northwest Territories to Toms River, New Jersey has a Toms River backstamp.

A backstamp, in philately, is a postmark on the back of a cover (almost invariably an envelope), showing a post office or station through which the cover passed in transit.

Backstamps are often applied as documentation of lengthy transit times, such as for ocean crossings. 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 highly valued by collectors of postal history.

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