Perhaps there is a flaw in my philatelic emotions but I always feel sad whenever I stumble across a cover that for one reason or another went unclaimed, eventually shunted off to the dead letter office as this cover was back in 1896.

Aside from my sadness, I am curious if anyone knows anything about this cover? Chiefly, what do you suppose the printed statement, "over 100 posted" references? Possibly a merchant campaign or politics? It would seem the sender would want to proclaim that thousands were posted.

I note that in this case, there is a manuscript indicator, "Left" informing the postal authority either by a member of the post or perhaps a citizen that Mr. P. Cosgrove has departed Bathurst.

Curious,
Bruce

 
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auldstampguy

Tim
Collector/Webmaster
03 Jul 2015
08:59:01am

re: New South Wales Unclaimed Cover

That is a very interesting cover Bruce. They seem to have held onto it for exactly one month before sending it to the Dead Letter Office, but they also seem to have taken the trouble to find out that Mr Cosgrove had left the town (Bathurst). I would have thought that if it was going to the Dead Letter Office they would have just thrown it into a bag that would eventually to sent to the DLO, but they have taken care to stamp the sending date and the DLO has taken care to stamp receipt. They took a lot more care of things back then. Also interesting that they had enough unclaimed mail that they had a special stamp created for it.

Regards ... Tim.

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cdj1122

re: New South Wales Unclaimed Cover

" ..... Also interesting that they had enough unclaimed mail that they had a special stamp created for it. ...."

It was much more common, not just for residents to receive mail via the central post office "Hold for pick-up" services, but travelers, being unsure of departure and ultimately arrival dates would check for such mail both at the post office as well as the hotel they expected to use upon arrival.
Trips over land and sea voyages were not expected to have the precision we expect today, weather, and mishaps were as common as timely arrivals.
Even in recent times I knew that just because a vessel was scheduled to arrive somewhere on or about a certain date, or at particular, port, orders to redirect the ships were fairly common.
I can recall letters catching up with me in bunches and on occasion, out of sequence. I remember one from a friend that opened "As I mentioned in my last letter ....." with only some vague reference to someone's impending delivery of what was hoped to be healthy boy child to go by. It's a long personal story I've written about to titillate my great grand-children someday.

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