The Daguin machine was one of the first cancelling machines used by the French postal administration. It was created by Eugène Daguin (1849-1888). Its first official use took place in June 1884 in Paris. It could cancel three thousand covers per hour.
Two datestamps were printed in one move by the postal clerk: the first cancelled the postage stamp and the second was a readable proof of date on the cover. Until 1949, the datestamp centers were 28 millimeters away from one another.
In the 1900s, more efficient machines replaced the Daguin. But it came back to service in the 1920s: the second datestamp was replaced by a commercial message inscribed in a round cornered quadrilateral. The official retirement of the Daguin machines was declared in the 1960s, with some exceptional use until the 1970s.
Philatelists discovered and studied the machine and its twin cancellations in the 1950s.
Read more about Daguin Machine: Philatelic Studies, Collection, Sources and References
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