Tau, Samoa Doane Cancel Census

The small post office at Tau on the island of Ta‘ū in American Samoa was supplied with a government-issued Doane cancel, a type of early twentieth century rubber handstamp characterised by its numbered bars. According to the Post Office Department's experiment, three types of Doane cancels were distributed beginning in 1903 and were used by hundreds of tiny U.S. post offices and possessions during the postcard craze. Most offices discarded them by 1915, although a few lingered into the 1920s.

Tau's Doane handstamp is the only known Doane cancel from American Samoa. Researcher Gary Anderson recorded its period of use from 26 January 1906 through 23 June 1909 on mail leaving the island. The earliest item is a cover franked with the 5¢ Lincoln stamp; nearly all other known examples are picture postcards bearing the green 1¢ Franklin stamp, cancelled on 23 June 1909 P.M. A handful of later discoveries have added a Jamestown 1¢ stamp on a postal stationery envelope and a 2¢ Washington stamp on a small piece.

Dec 18, 2025: A recently concluded eBay auction turned up two previously unrecorded Tau postcards. Now catalogued in this census as Tau-11 and Tau-12, each card shows the Tau Doane postmark dated 23 June 1909 A.M.

This census compiles the twelve recorded items cancelled at Tau with the Doane handstamp. If you know of additional covers or cards, please get in touch.

Sources: The descriptions above draw on my personal research, auction listings and correspondence, along with the WordPress posts I previously published about Tau. For an overview of Doane cancels in general, see the Paper History article on the Doane experiment.

×