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Over the years the manner in which way postmarks are designated and later how there are visually shown has caused much debate The original Bloomfield
sheets work well for the 'Classic postmarks' but for others the Bloomfield system is too simple does not convey much information about the postmark.
More importantly as new postmarks are recorded they cannot easily be given a code that fits logically into the Bloomfield system and this has lead other
systems to used for specifically subjects or which the Hotels and TPOs are good examples.
The Bloomfield system gave no concession to town names the idea being that a particular mark was common throughout Egypt with only the town name changing. Again this works reasonably well for the classic postmarks but after 1880 many postmarks do not fit this pattern and a 'type' may only be found for one particular mark. The pictorial representation argument on how much should the marking be titillated from that found on a cover or stamp. The original postmark lists were all hand drawn, some with great expertise others not so well. This hand method was done by necessity as none of the modern methods we can use today were available but has lead to the same mark being drawn with human variations and classified twice. Also some of the Arabic has obviously been done by some who have no understanding of Arabic. See query 28 for some of the arguments. |