Canadian numeral precancels

Canadian precancels were first issued in 1889. Early varieties were cancelled by rubber rollers in various designs of straight, wavy and interrupted lines. The different designs are identified by the letters A to U, with the distinction that the letters O, P and Q are not used. In 1912, precancels was introduced, consisting of three pairs of horizontal lines. These are types V, W and X. A last type of two pairs of horizontal lines, type Y was issued in the 1970s.

Line cancels began to be replaced with town and city cancels in 1903 and a printing press was set up in Ottawa to do these. In general the precancel looks like this: two horizontal lines in the middle, above them the city name, below them the name of the province. In total 55 cities used such precancels until 1922. There are many different types and values, making a total of 1150 different precancels of this type to collect.

Starting in 1931, city name types were replaced by Numbers according to the Dominion Post Order system. 47 different cities used this type of precancels and together they produced 452 different stamps. Eventually, the numeral cancels were phased out and replaced by the horizontal bars types V, W, X and Y.
This list shows all the number cancels that have been used in Canada.




CANADIAN PRECANCEL STAMP CODES

NOVA SCOTIA
X275 Halifax 

NEW BRUNSWICK
X809 Moncton 
X910 St. John 
X945 Sackville 

QUEBEC
0592 Lennoxville 
0700 Montreal 
1050 Quebec 
1142 Rock Island 
1470 Saint Hyacinthe 
1810 Sherbrooke 

ONTARIO
2186 Beamsville
2310 Brantford
2342 Brockville
2450 Carfleton Place
2575 Cobourg
2980 Galt
3080 Guelph
3100 Hamilton
3340 Kingston
3366 Kitchener
3445 Lindsay
3070 London Ontario (Error, should have been 3470)
3470 London
3800 Niagara Falls
3893 Oshawa
3900 Ottawa
3975 Owen Sound
4004 Paris
4035 Peterborough
4260 Saint Thomas
4530 Toronto
4900 Weston
4940 Windsor
4970 Woodstock

MANITOBA
5099 Brandon
5850 Winnipeg

SASKATCHEWAN
7120 Moose Jaw
7420 Regina
7550 Saskatoon
7977 Yorktown

ALBERTA
8160 Calgary
8360 Edmonton
8605 Lethbridge
8802 Red Deer

BRITISH COLUMBIA
9500 New Westminster
9780 Vancouver
9890 Victoria