Private cancellation

Private cancellations are cancellations of postage stamps, or in some cases, artist stamps applied by other than a government or other official stamp-issuing entity.

They are also occasionally used to create "first day of issue" items for personalized U.S. postage (officially defined as meter labels and thus not requiring cancellation).

[1] Private cancellations are often applied by local posts to their stamps (this is frequently also the first day of issue).

They can in the U.S. be applied to mail carried outside the post by authority of the private express statutes.

Private postmarks have also been used as back-stamps showing the name of the firm from which the mail was sent.