Good to see some posts from friends who have been absent for a while. You're always welcome!
Here's my cover for the day. It's a large envelope that was flown (1931) in the Graf Zeppelin to Hooker Island where it made a water landing to transfer mail to the ice breaker ship Malyguin. For more, you can check out this week's Postal History Sunday entry.
Well look what the philacat dragged in. Great to see both Mitchell and Burton are still perusing the Stamp Chat venue. I've continued my razor cancel exhibiting, plus a few other topics but on a smaller scale. Sorry, I haven't used Facebook since about 2008 when I left Hawaii. Didn't like the data collecting aspect of the business model.
Meanwhile:
11 December 1922
A nice Express cover Bern [4.05] 11 December 1922 within Bern. Theletter was mailed and dtae stamped at 11pm, there is a receiving date stamp on the reverse at 3am. It's my understanding that first attempted deliveries for Express letters was 6am.
Local express letter postage 20 centimes plus 60 centimes express fee. Philatelic block of four. Postage at the time was 20 centimes for regular letter plus 60 centimes for Express. There coould also be paid extra for "special" special delivery which meant a specific carrier would deliver the letter at any hour, so who knows how this was handled!
The nice thing about this cover is that a block of four canceled is valued at CHF 580.00. So philatelic or not, it has stamp collector interest and could be soaked off!!!
Doesn't seem to like uploading an image, so trying again.
Roger,
I am glad you are persisting with posts despite some of the silliness that the software is creating. Sometimes the images show for me and sometimes they don't. The latest attempt I was able to go in and edit the post and it then showed the image. No idea why. It's a typical software update when you have software developers that never took the subject of software testing seriously in college - assuming they even got that much education on computer science. 😉
I just noticed that the latest post by bwiphilately no longer has an image when I view it now, but I distinctly recall looking at the item that is still described in that post. That's kind of a shame because I like bwi's posts. It's an area I know very little about, so it's all new learning.
Mitch, I am also curious if you were able to rebuild. I do think about you when I post here and hope life is treating you reasonably well.
Burton,
It's good to see you here too! When you say completing Machins, do you mean like... really completing Machins? That takes real dedication.
Jim,
Good to see you bouncing in to say hello too. Slowly but surely I have been rescanning some of the 24 cent material that had poorer quality to them. I'll try to share in the future as I get to them. The problem with this cover a day format for me is that I lose track of what I shared previously after a while. Roger has the advantage of me because he's showing items with origin dates that match the current day. It will take a year for him to start doubling up!
All,
I'm going to be unable to post on and off over the holidays, but I'll try to share when I can.
Here is a letter from the US to Bremen, mailed in the early 1860s (I don't have my notes to check the exact year date). The interesting thing about mail to the German States was that the US actually had postal agreements with Prussia (Prussian Closed Mail), Bremen and Hamburg. The Hanseatic cities had the advantage of control of well-used shipping ports (Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven) and so supported trans-Atlantic shipping lines that put them into position for this sort of agreement.
This letter is interesting partly because it went to Bremen via the Prussian Closed Mail. That means it visited the UK and Belgium on the way to Aachen (at the border with Belgium). One might rightly expect most letters from the US to Bremen to come direct to Bremen, but the North German Lloyd line did not sail weekly, so there were times when it was faster to take another route to get there.
Roger - well, keep 'em coming!
To continue on with the prior subject of mail to or via Bremen. Here is an item that was sent from the US via Bremen to Hesse-Darmstadt, which would have been served by the Thurn & Taxis postal services. Evidence that this letter was processed by the Bremen mail system is the blue "America uber Bremen Franco" marking (essentially indicating the letter is from America through Bremen and it is paid).
An oddity of my collection is that I do not have anything via Bremen FOR Bremen. The main reason for it is that the postage per 1/2 ounce of weight was 10 cents to Bremen and 15 cents to the rest of the German Austrian Postal Union. I focus on the 24 cent stamp, so instances of that stamp on mail to/thru Bremen usually ends up being multiple rates - like this one, a double weight letter at the 15 cent rate.
12 December 1900
Business post card from Tramelan to Aarau mailed at Tramelan station for transit on the Regional railway total of 9km long! It was steam until electrification in 1913. The picture of the locomotive is circa 1910.
BTW - I can't edit my posts which is annoying as I usually find something wrong.
Burt - I don't know if you have seen the full set, but a member of our local stamp club was in Britain when these stamps came out and sent each member a cover like this as a present. The 1p and 2p stamp are loose and just being used to cover my address and the sender's address.
Too bad Blackpool ran out of ink in its cancelling machine - LOL
Sorry to hear about your parents Mitch, mine are still going though dad is in and out of hospice these days. They are much younger, in their late 80s. 🙂 I've noticed a couple of time that you haven't been doing updates to your sites, I hope you are still able to stay active with your collection.
