PDF files of the below counties and cities are available with their last update shown in parentheses.
(The files may be large and take several minutes to download.)
Alexander County (Apr 4th, 2020)
Alleghany County (Apr 7th, 2020)
Anson County (Apr 10th, 2020)
Asheville (Apr 25th, 2020)
Ashe County (Apr 17th, 2020)
Avery County (Apr 20th, 2020)
Beaufort County (Apr 30th, 2020)
Bertie County (May 7th, 2020)
Bladen County (May 11th, 2020)
Brunswick County (May 15th, 2020)
Buncombe County (Jun 1st, 2020)
Burke County (Jun 4th, 2020)
Cabarrus County (Jun 9th, 2020)
Caldwell County (Jun 15th, 2020)
Camden County (Jun 17th, 2020)
Carteret County (Jun 20th, 2020)
Caswell County (Jun 23rd, 2020)
Catawba County (Oct 12th, 2020)
Charlotte (Jul 9th, 2020)
Chatham County (Jul 13th, 2020)
Cherokee County (Jul 29th, 2020)
Chowan County (Aug 1st, 2020)
Clay County (Aug 1st, 2020)
Cleveland County (Aug 3rd, 2020)
Columbus County (Aug 9th, 2020)
Craven County (Aug 17th, 2020)
Cumberland County (Aug 22nd, 2020)
Currituck County (Sep 9th, 2020)
Dare County (Sep 15th, 2020)
Davidson County (Sep 30th, 2020)
Davie County (Oct 7th, 2020)
Duplin County (Oct 12th, 2020)
Durham County (Oct 14th, 2020)
Edgecombe County (Oct 22nd, 2020)
Fayetteville (Oct 28th, 2020)
Forsyth County (Nov 10th, 2020)
Franklin County (Dec 16th, 2016)
Gaston County (Dec 21st, 2016)
Gates County (Dec 24th, 2016)
Graham County (Feb 7th, 2017)
Granville County (Feb 12th, 2017)
Greene County (Feb 14th, 2017)
Greensboro (Oct 18th, 2018)
Guilford County (Feb 23rd, 2017)
Halifax County (Mar 16th, 2017)
Harnett County (May 23rd, 2017)
Haywood County (May 28th, 2017)
Henderson County (Mar 23rd, 2018)
Hertford County (Mar 26th, 2018)
Hoke County (Mar 28th, 2018)
Hyde County (Mar 31st, 2018)
Iredell County (Apr 8th, 2018)
Jackson County (Dec 30th, 2018)
Johnston County (Jan 2nd, 2019)
Jones County (Jan 3rd, 2019)
Lee County (Jan 5th, 2019)
Lenoir County (Jan 8th, 2019)
Lincoln County (Jan 20th, 2019)
Macon County (Jan 25th, 2019)
Madison County (Jan 30th, 2019)
Martin County (Feb 3rd, 2019)
McDowell County (Feb 8th, 2019)
Mecklenburg County (Feb 12th, 2019)
Mitchell County (Mar 12th, 2019)
Montgomery County (Mar 29th, 2019)
Moore County (Apr 12th, 2019)
Nash County (Apr 17th, 2019)
New Hanover County (Apr 19th, 2019)
Northampton County (Apr 27th, 2019)
Onslow County (Apr 20th, 2014)
Orange County (Apr 1st, 2014)
Pamlico County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Pasquotank County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Pender County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Perquimans County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Person County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Pitt County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Polk County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Raleigh (Feb 4th, 2020)
Randolph County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Richmond County (Apr 18th, 2015)
Robeson County (Mar 29th, 2015)
Rockingham County (May 25th, 2015)
Rowan County (Jul 4th, 2015)
Rutherford County (Sep 5th, 2015)
Sampson County (Oct 24th, 2015)
Scotland County (Nov 13th, 2015)
Stanly County (Dec 16th, 2015)
Stokes County (Jan 25th, 2016)
Surry County (Aug 19th, 2016)
Swain County (May 12th, 2016)
Transylvania County (Jun 28th, 2016)
Tyrrell County (Jul 7th, 2016)
Union County (Aug 21st, 2016)
Vance County (Oct 17th, 2016)
Wake County (Dec 5th, 2016)
Warren County (Jan 26th, 2017)
Washington County (Feb 5th, 2017)
Watauga County (Apr 22nd, 2017)
Wayne County (Jan 1st, 2018)
Wilkes County (Feb 27th, 2018)
Wilmington (Apr 30th, 2015)
Wilson County (Apr 30th, 2018)
Yadkin County (Aug 14th, 2018)
Yancey County (Nov 19th, 2018)

In 1996, the North Carolina Postal History Society published a four-volume set of books titled, Post Offices and Postmasters of North Carolina. These carefully prepared books, under the editorial leadership of Vernon S. Stroupe, documented not only the post offices and postmasters of the 6,915 different post offices in North Carolina from the pre-revolutionary times to modern times, but also illustrated all known postmarks from these offices used before the twentieth century.
A long-term project is underway to update that catalog with new postmark information from the nineteenth century and to add all the known postmarks from the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Since it will take several years to complete this work, the North Carolina Postal History Society wants to share the development of the new catalog as it is being completed, county by county. In this way we hope to make available the postmark data, which is known today, and not wait until the whole catalog is completed.
The format of the new catalog comes from the original catalog. Each post office is listed alphabetically within a county along with the postmasters of that office. Also shown are the known postmarks of that office. In many cases, the file sizes are large; however, we feel that those interested in downloading the information for their own use will find a suitable means to access those files, which are easily downloaded for users with high-speed internet access. All the data from the original catalog is presented along with the added new information. For each postmark, we will provide either the black and white tracing from the original catalog or a color scan of a new marking made from actual postmarks where available. Some of the “color scans” will be from black and white photocopies since that format was the only information available. Each marking will show a new type number, the dimension of the marking, the color of the marking, and the dates of use that we have observed. Each county of the catalog has been placed into a pdf file format that can be downloaded if desired. The major North Carolina cities, that have large postmark files have been removed from their appropriate counties and made into separate PDFs. These cities are Asheville, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Raleigh and Wilmington. You will see that each has a PDF of their own.
The right to the digital information contained in these files belongs to the North Carolina Postal History Society; therefore, any use other than personal is prohibited without the consent of the North Carolina Postal History Society.
In determining the classification criteria of the new markings, we have used the classification systems that have been published by different twentieth century postal historians. The classification of duplex metal handstamps was published by Richard W. Helbock and Dan Meschter in La Posta (May 1987). The Doane and 4-Bar postmark classifications were published by Doug DeRoest in La Posta (September 1990). Tony Crumbley, who maintains the Doane database for North Carolina, has provided the latest information on North Carolina Doane cancels. The machine cancellation types have be validated by members of the Machine Cancel Society. This society also has shared with us the current information of North Carolina machine markings from their extensive database of United States machine cancels.
An important part of the new information for this catalog has come from the Postal History Collection at the North Carolina State Archives. Their support of this project has been monumental. In addition, almost all the important twentieth century data has come from the Post Mark Collectors Club Research Center in Bellevue, Ohio, where they maintain the largest postmark collections found anywhere in the world. Important updates also have come from the massive records maintained by the editor of the previous catalog, Vernon S. Stroupe, who never stopped collecting information about North Carolina postmarks and graciously shared this data until his untimely death in 2006. Finally, a large number of new markings have come from collectors, such as Tony Crumbley, whose extensive collection of North Carolina postal history is unparalleled.
Our desire is that interested collectors will examine the listed markings against their collections. Where new postmarks are found or revisions to the information provided, such as dates of use, color, etc., we hope that this new information will be submitted for consideration to be included in the catalog. Please send your data to:
Richard F. Winter
5432 Geneva Terrace
Colfax, NC 27235
rfwinter645@gmail.com
If you wish to report new postmarks, please include a 300dpi color scan or a high resolution color photocopy of the marking to the address shown, either electronically or by regular mail. Please make certain that the new postmarks show 100 percent of the actual marking size. This way the data can be incorporated into the catalog. Questions or inquiries can be referred to the address above also.