The Mystery of the Missing Dots is quite intriguing. I have been collecting FDCs for so long but somehow missed it. Well the best explanation was provided by the winner.
The explanation is that the “cancel” (Malaysians call it the “chop”!) might be too shallow in some area (uneven depth). Thus when the person cancels the FDC, these variations will appear. These variations can also be caused by the uneven pressure when applying the cancel. Uneven inking can also be a contributing factor. In fact the rare FDC is where on a single cover, you can find “dots”, “no dots” and”partial dots” (composite variations)!
So the pre-requisite is that the date stamp format is in dd.mm.yyyy (Malaysian date format). If the date is written in words, you will not get this type of variation! Well, interested? Go back and check out your collection of FDCs. Maybe you will be lucky to find the composite variations.
If you find anything interesting, drop me a note! I would love to feature it (of course credit will be given to you)!
As we just celebrated World Heart Day (29 September 2012), which was also the date of the final reminder, I thought it fitting to give the World Heart Day FDC issued on 24 September 2000 as the prize! There is also another coincidence: The cancellation on World Heart Day 2000 has “dots” and “no dots” variations!
I am a fan of setenant stamps and as such I will buy quite a lot of FDCs and stamps for a setenant issue for my own collection. I went through all my FDCs for the World Heart Day issue and found ONE composite variation FDC! It has the “no dot”, “partial dot” and “dot” between the month and year! Have a look:
Oh, yes, and the winner is… J.L. Romero (a regular reader and specialist collector from Spain)! ¡Gracias por participar!
sky52200
myfdc 
Wow! Many thanks! A beautiful cover with very interesting cancellations.
About The Mistery of the Missing Dots maybe we can assume that is possible that variation would appears on every issue that have dots in the cancellation (for now I only saw it in the 1994 Pitcher plants issue, the 1999/2000 millennium issues and now in that 2000 issue). If that’s right, then maybe there is a fault in the making of the rubber stamps used to cancel the issues. Maybe is a past error and the actual making of these rubber stamps don’t have that fault. It’s a very interesting question.
But to know this we need more information, more cases of this variation on every issue possible, so every one that have a collection with any of these issues with dots in the cancellation please looks into your collection and let it know if you have that variation (or if you haven’t) and in which issue you have (or not) it. Maybe you would find the first FDC with that variation in a post 2000 issue!
Hola JLR!
Valid observations! I will be checking my past FDCs. Perhaps many more interesting cancellation variations will come out! This is certainly an interesting angle. The “dates” on the cancellations have been spelled in words in the recent few years making these “dot” variations very desirable in a cancellation collection!
Keep in findings coming! Anyone else who find interesting cancels, feel free to share!
sky52200
Lovely bloog you have