OFFICES

Mexico in 1868 was administratively divided into 41 (40?) postal districts each with its main office (usually the most important town within the division) and various sub offices. Stamps distributed from Mexico City bearing a district number and year overprint would, on arrival, be hand stamped with the district name then be further distributed to the sub offices. Click on any of the district names (below or left) to see examples, including sub office usage (indicated by the cancellation).

1	Mexico City	22	Durango
2	Veracruz	23	Oaxaca
3	Guadalajara (to 1869)	24	Cuernavaca
4	Puebla	25	Acapulco
5	San Luis Potosi	26	Campeche
6	Guanajuato	27	La Paz
7	Monterrey	28	Chiapas
8	Mazatlan	29	Victoria
9	Matamoros	30	Saltillo
10	Morelia	31	Ures
11	Colima	32	Tixtla Guerrero
12	Queretaro	33	Huejutla
13	Zacatecas	34	Maravatio
14	Jalapa	35	Tula
15	Tulancingo	36	Aguascalientes
16	Toluca	37	Lagos
17	Pachuca	38	Tabasco
18	Orizava	39	Tampico
19	Merida	40	Tlaxcala
20	Cordova	41	Tacubaya (no stamp usage with "41" on record.)
21	Chihuahua	41	Guadalajara (1869 and after)

Every main office except Tacubaya received at least some stamps in each of the five denominations. Therefore every district number/denomination combination is possible. However, not every main office received all denominations for each of the five possible years, so there are those district/denomination/years that are simply not available. Collectors of this issue, for instance, in pursuit of the district/denomination/year combinations are in for a tedious search for thin figure 12 centavo stamps with a '69 date, and even then they must be satisfied with the lone district Saltillo. The pages (stamps) exhibiting stamps in district/denomination/year format provide an array of what a collector can expect if pursuing a "complete" collection of this issue.

The layout of the offices will exhibit a stamp where one is owned by this collector. In the absence of a stamp the viewer will either see the word "NONE" or a number. "NONE" indicates that there were no deliveries according to the official records. And a number in the cell represents the number of stamps delivered, which will be some indication of how difficult it should be to locate the stamp. Any quantity under 200 will likely result in a difficult search as there may or may not be any surviving candidates.