I was very intrigued by this cover, and did a bit of research based on your in-depth article. Although I could not make out the name of the 1st addressee, the second name may be Mr. Arthur Iselin, who was listed on the passenger manifest as boarding the SS Rex in Dublin. An internet search of his name produced this photo
Mr. Arthur Iselin was a society photographer in New York around 1910-1930. I always find it interesting to research the history of unique articles from the past. Thanks for the post!!
4 November 1867
Domestic postal stationery from Bern to Zaziwyl.
This Bern canceller, used about one year after it was issued to the Bern PO, was the very first device using the newly developed rotating date wheels. No other country had this design, all used slugs inserted daily into their date stamps. Notice the envelope indicia is not cancelled since the Post Office saw no point to it. Once the envelope was used it was not possible to reuse it, therefore, no need to mark the indicia. This means that all cut squares offered today from Swiss envelopes are from this type of cover or wrapper. Ones that are found with a date stamp are unusual and if one could see the cover from which it was cut would discover the reason for the date stamp on the indicia.
airbornestamps,
Glad you enjoyed that one. Obviously, I did too because I wrote the more detailed post. I certainly do not mind adding you additional efforts to the pile on that particular cover. Someone asked me when I knew I was done researching a particular item. The answer is, I don't know. You never know when some new piece of knowledge or insight can broaden or provide depths to the story.
It feels right to continue with more National Parks items. Here is an air mail and registered mail item from the US to Greece. Registration was 15 cents. US Air Mail was 8 cents and European Air was 3 cents in postage for a total of 26 cents. The letter was carried by steamship across the Atlantic, which was considered paid for by the US 8 cents in postage.
bobpatt,
Some of the clues are on the back. The Sept 22 New York marking and an Oct 2 marking for Greece pretty much eliminates anything other than steamship to cross the Atlantic. The other tell is that trans-Atlantic air mail was not available until 1939, and this letter was mailed in 1935. And finally, the docket that indicates airmail both in US and in EU would not have been necessary if it were a trans-Atlantic flight.
I hope that answered the question. But, if it didn't, feel free to tell me so and we'll get there. 🙂
Rob
Let's stay with the National Parks theme (at least on my end). Here's a letter that was sent via airmail from New York City to Puerto Rico. The rate was 10 cents at the time (1935) and I probably should remind us that this was not foreign mail as Puerto Rico was (and is) a US territory. The recipient was clearly traveling and was likely the spouse of the sender of this letter, who knew where the letter needed to be forwarded if it arrived to late for the ship.
This cover shows up in the middle of this Postal History Sunday that focused on the delivery side of mail.
Missed yesterday, had to go outside to stop stuff from blowing away. Lot's of leaves came down in a real blow (gusts into the mid-40knots), which carried over into this morning. Clean-up today, not bad mostly leaves and conifer twigs.
5 November 1868
Unfranked letter - 15 centimes collect. The Güller canceller was the first to have all "grotesk" font, no serifs. It still had fine hatchures, which eventually were modified along with later cancellers to have wider and fewer bars. This style allowed ink to clog the fine lines.
historypapers, it's always interesting to see uses of the semi-postals of the period. Not an area I'll ever spend much collecting time on myself. But, I have some curiosity around them, so it is good to look for patterns and figure out who was using them and how.
malolo, the world has this way of reminding us that everything can be turned upside down in a moment. Happily, it sounds as if there wasn't too much damage for you to work on. But, it still takes over your life for a time when it happens.
Well, today is Sunday - so there is a new Postal History Sunday published today. It features the item shown below. It is simply a triple rate letter. The simple letter rate was 24 cents per half ounce when it was mailed in June of 1866. However, this item is actually quite extraordinary because prior to April 1 of that year, any odd rate (triple, quintuple, etc) would not have been allowed between the US and UK.
6 November 1906
After seeing Decoppet's canceller at the UPU Convention in Bern in 1900, the Norwegian PO asked for a sample of the "new" mechanism type canceller. Decoppet sent this in 1903, and as you can see the upper and lower lines of the date bridge are missing. Norway was unhappy with this look and asked for another or for Decoppet to repair it. Since Norway had a habit of copying Swiss cancelers going back to circa 1880 (no international patent system existed) Decoppet basically told them there was no need since the appearance would be different anyway, if they order multiple cancellers from him. (He had also sent a second example which is very rare and had the appearance of the Vevey Exhibition canceller of 1901.) On a scale of 1-13 the example below is about a 6 and the other a 12.
Güller made cancellers according to Decoppet's 1903 patents for other countries well into the 1930's.
More National Parks issue! This was an air mail letter sent from Chicago in 1939 to Costa Rica.
FAM (Foreign Air Mail) route #5 was initially established in 1929, but the route continued to expand over time. The rate for this letter was 15 cents per ½ ounce: Dec 1, 1937 - Mar 31, 1945.
Rob
Cover dated March 17, 1909 from Chateaubelair, a small village in St. Vincent, to Las Cascadas, Canal Zone. Las Cascadas was a temporary village of about 2,500 inhabitants who built the Culebra Cut portion of the Panama Canal. April 6 arrival datestamp on reverse.
7 November 1910
A fisrst class internaitonal letter from Brazil to Bern, Switzerland, forwarded to Spiez, The Bern date stamp was made in 1903 by the Germans in hopes of selling the deisgn to the Swiss PO at theitme Decoppet was testing his flexiblke-head cancelers. This device can be iddentified easily by the hour wheels 8N representing 8 Nachmittag (evening) The Swiss didn't use (N) or (V) Vormittag (mornign) in its date stamps. Swiss date stmaps at this time used Roman numerals for before noon and regular numerals for after-noon. As you can see Brazil was still using date slug date stamps.
7 November 1910
A first class international letter from Brazil to Bern, Switzerland, forwarded to Spiez. The Bern date stamp was made in 1903 by the Germans in hopes of selling the design to the Swiss PO at the time Decoppet was testing his flexible-head cancelers. This device can be identified easily by the hour wheels 8N representing 8 Nachmittag (evening) The Swiss didn't use (N) or (V) Vormittag (morning) in its date stamps. Swiss date stamps at this time used Roman numerals for before noon and regular numerals for after-noon. As you can see Brazil was still using date slug date stamps.
