Here is one of the two first covers that I bought believing it was cancelled by a Daguin machine. I bought those at the 4 days of Marigny, to a covers dealer.
On the back, we discover the sender : « RASCOL-ORAN / 6, rue Péraldi », and the cover is sent to « Monsieur / G. Lemaitre, [?] / à Francheville / (Eure) ». She was franked with a 15 centimes blue Sage type « N under U ».The cancellation is dated 31 March 1896 and made at the Karguentah post office, in Oran. Algeria was French at the time and the stamps of France were used since January 1849 till 1924.
The two gemini cancellation have a ressemblance to a cancellation made by a Daguin machine, I first thought. Mr. Nouazé made better calculation : the centers of the two marks are too far away from each other (3 cm againt the Daguin 2,8 cm). Secondly, the rotation of one mark looks too little for him. Finally, the crowns and date blocks of the two cancellations are too alike, whereas they must be much different.
This cover is not a Daguin (the devil says to my ear that the machine may be new, the crowns and blocks correctly and newly affixed... but don't dream with so uncheckable things). But, I am disappointed since the cover is well conserved and from late 19th century French Algeria.
For the tiny trace I thought was a proof of the piston toucheur (the mechanism helped to fix the cover on the table to make a clean and perfect cancellation), it is too tiny and too close to the cancellation than expected for a Daguin (3,5 cm from the circle's centers). Postal origin or problem in the conservation during the 111 years of existence of this letter, I may cetainly never know.
I thank Yvon Nouazé, author of L'Oblitération mécanique en France (Académie de philatélie award 2007) about mechanical cancellation in France, that without me asking him, wrote to corrected spontaneously my errors.
On the back of the cover, the postmark of Francheville indicates an arrival on April, 5th 1896, six days later.
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