Books

Our society supports and encourages members to publish books and articles relating to our areas of interest. Our publications page lists society publications for sale.

Typical items that our members collect

PPC mailed on board the USMS New York: 2¢ stamp cancelled in the sea post office by UNITED STATES SEA P.O. / 1 on February 2 1907 on a westbound voyage. The card was taxed in New York and arrived back in Liverpool on February 14th where it was charged 3d before being sent on its way to Loughborough.

Cancel of the Highway Post Office service running between South Bend, Peru and Indianapolis, Indiana on the reply section of a US postal card, addressed to GB, June 1946.

While there is no doubt that mail was carried during the war years, the Travelling Post Office in Great Britain was officially resumed on the 7th October 1946 and someone created a series of envelopes with postings from all of the various routes for the first day of service. These are highly sought after items and the illustration is taken from that set.

Exeter & Torrington Sorting Carriage - rare skeleton mark

London & Holyhead TPO bundle label from Dublin, Ireland. Just the sort of ephemera to enhance your TPO display!

PPC of the German vessel D.ADOLPH WOERMANN with a "Deutsche Seepost / Ost Afrikanische Hauptlinie" cancel as well as a superb and rare Walvis Bay Paquebot cancel (Hosking 2916C), a very nice combination on a clean 1927 era postcard. Walvis Bay is in South West Africa and used to be the port for Woermann Line (German) to call at in order to supply the German Area which became SW Africa in 1918.

US Postal Card mailed on December 31st, 1882, to GB where it received a Liverpool Packet mark (Robertson P14). On the reverse is a sailing schedule from New York.

Introducing the society

The Society welcomes everyone interested in world-wide railway Travelling Post Office and Maritime (sea post / paquebot / naval / ship letter / river or lake steamer) philatelic material, whether as their main collection or as part of another collecting field. See our list of TPO and Seapost articles introducing these topics to new visitors.

The Society issues an award winning quarterly Journal full of news and interesting information on TPO and Seapost matters. We offer direct Sales of maritime and TPO covers and Postal Auctions are held four times during the year. The exchange of news, views and information between members is encouraged through the Journal and by means of meetings held periodically in UK regional centres and in London.

The navigation bar will guide you through our web site. To contact the Society, please go to the Contact page. To join, go to the Membership page. We have a large Reference Library and list of Publications for sale.

Travelling Post Office terminology around the World

While Great Britain and countries from the British Commonwealth use the term TPO for a mail sorting office on the railway, other countries with TPO systems gave their operations different names. Canada and the USA use the term RPO while other countries use the terms Ambulant, Ambte, Amb., Ambu, and Ambulancia. Further terms include Bahnpost, Fahrend, Postamt, Messagieri, Postvagon, Vagon Postal, Jernbanebureau, Postekspedisjon, Jernvagens postkupéexpedition and Postkupéer. Most recently we have learned that in Sarawak Pejabat Pos Berbenk (PPB) means Mobile Post Office.

All of these terms mean the same thing: they all signify a Travelling Post Office. Refer to the TPO introduction page for more explanations of terms.

Maritime terminology around the World

Compared with TPO names, seapost, ship letters and maritime mail terms are relatively easy to manage, so just watch out for Paquebot, Ligne, Sea Post, Schiffs Brief, Schiffspost, etc.

Our members are also interested in river and lakes mails where the covers bear marks such as STEAMER or VAPOR PAQUETE.