The object (as demonstrated on this mocked-up bobsleigh postal card): match a stamp and postmark, then add the Whistler Olympic City Cancel to verify this mail was actually postmarked on a specific date.
We’ve just learned that Canada Post jettisoned the idea of “rotating” postmarks, at least at its Vancouver Main post office. This is good news as now it will be easier for collectors to actually receive a postmark from a specific sport on an event day.
A couple of guidelines to help select what postmark to apply. First, try to match one of the 24 sports postmarks to the stamp you are using. If it’s an ice hockey stamp, use the ice hockey postmark. For events with no matching sport stamp, use something similar if possible – a skiing stamp with snow sport postmark. Another possibility: use the Vancouver stamp for Vancouver event postmarks and the Whistler stamp for … well you get the idea.
Second, the event cancels are what we call “range dates”. This means that the cancel lists a period – in this case February 12-28 – rather than a single date. The result is that you have no real record of when a “range date” postmark was actually applied. However, there may be a solution. Vancouver and Whistler are among the 32 cities using the special Olympic “City Cancels”. The dates in these cancels change each day. When combined on the same cover or postcard with the sports event postmark you have a piece of Olympic mail which can be verified as having been mailed on a specific day! Hopefully the Vancouver Main and Whistler post offices will have these City Cancels available for collectors to use. If all else fails, ask for a standard circular date cancel – it may not be fancy, but it does the job!
I’ve reached the conclusion of my 5 tips to create eye-popping Olympic philately. So with the Olympic Opening Ceremony just hours away, go forth and have some philatelic fun! I’ll be winging my way to Vancouver tomorrow morning and hopefully will have a location report later in the evening.
