In 1865, the Brazilian Government issued a Decree authorizing post offices to cancel postage stamps with “Mute cancellations,” the design and use of which was at the discretion of each post office. These cancellations, which were typically carved into cork, rubber, or wood, featured a vast array of designs.
Identifying these cancellations has long been a challenge for collectors of the stamps of Brazil’s Imperial period. Paulo Ayres’ classic work Catálogo de Carimbos (Brasil-Império) of 1937 identified 948 Mute cancellations and was the definitive work for many years. During the late 1990s, two distinguished philatelists of the Brazil Philatelic Association (BPA), Klerman Wanderley Lopes and James Alfred Dingler, set out to catalog the Mute cancellations that did not appear in Ayres’ volume. They identified over 3,700 additional cancellations. The First Edition listed a total of 4,679 cancellations, with a new numbering system to identify them. The book includes a Cross Reference of BPA numbers to Ayres numbers.
This new Second Edition adds 71 cancellations that were identified after the publication of the original volume and also includes a scarcity rating for all 4,750 cancellations.
Mute Cancellations of the Brazil Empire / Carimbos Mudos do Império Brasil was originally published in 2000 by the Brazil Philatelic Association. It was out of print for a number of years. Now the BPA has come out with this new, expanded Second Edition to ensure collectors of Brazil will continue to have access to this helpful philatelic resource.
The book is available on Amazon. When checked, it is listed on their US ($40), UK (£30), and German sites (€37).
