Editing Machine postmark (section)

{{Short description|Industrial standardised mail marking}}
{{Globalize|article|USA|2name=the United States|date=November 2016}}
[[File:Cover Bahamas 1929 front.jpg|thumb|225px|1929 machine cancellation used to cancel 1d stamp on [[first flight]] cover from [[Nassau, Bahamas|Nassau]] to [[Miami]]]]

A '''machine postmark''' or '''machine cancellation''' is a [[postmark]] or [[Cancellation (mail)|cancellation]] on [[mail]] that is applied by a mechanical device rather than with the use of a [[handstamp]]. Nearly all machine-cancellation devices apply both postmark and cancellation simultaneously. While some mail is cancelled using handstamps,  machine cancellation is ubiquitous, and in the industrialized nations the vast majority of mail is cancelled by machine.