Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
This one goes right into my "Cool Covers" album. Who can resist a cover with a large illustration of a dog? What endears it even more is the letter that was enclosed. I like the simplicity of 1936... "I am sending $5.00 as down payment on dog.... I will send money from time to time..." Interesting transaction. Did Marcus ever get his doggies? And while there was a letter inside, there as no $5.00. Believe me I looked!
Falling into the category of interesting usage is this 1967 airmail cover to England. The sender put three of the David Thoreau commemoratives on it, but the airmail rate then was 20 cents. At first the Brits thought they'd send it home for more postage, but probably realized that was more of a cost to the system then the sender so they billed the recipient. Anyway, it makes for an interesting cover that is now on the Thoreau page in my USA album.
Per my own free range way of collecting USA, I decided that Special Delivery and Postage Due stamps were more interesting on cover. Here's two covers that made their way in haste to Trenton State College, now known as the College of New Jersey once Trenton got a bad name.
The certified cover uses the Liberty Series Robert E Lee 30 cent stamp, so that's where this cover resides in my USA collection. And of course the Special Delivery stamp is on that page in the Special Delivery / Postage Due album.
Airmail to Cameroun, West Africa using two nice US Airmail stamps. Nicely canceled from St Louis with two different types of cancel. That makes it a keeper.
I said before that I do like interesting usage. Not many people saved their junk mail, so I find a precancel on cover interesting. It went right into my prexie album.
Here's a WWII soldiers mail from 1945. It seems Edwin was mailing a letter to his wife back in New Jersey from Haag, Germany, which is where APO 200 was at the time. This was a little over a month after Germany's surrender and sharp eyes will see that the airmail stamp is the bottom stamp of a booklet pane. I don't know what would make this a double rate piece, but you think the post office could've done a war hero a favor?
Side note, this box is chock full of WWII era covers, even some WWI ones. I believe I'll get my money's worth just studying this bunch. Oh, I feel a new collection coming on!
A permit card with $1.20 postage due. As a former company mail boy, let me explain how this works.. Every day when a permit holder retrieves their mail, they get a slip with the total postage due for all the pieces that have come in that day. You take the slip up to the counter, and pay the postage due to retrieve the items. Back in the day, postage due stamps were used to record the revenue. So each day one piece of mail would become the receipt for the postage paid. As you see here.
Right into my postage due collection!
And wouldn't ya know! I found a New Jersey postmark I didn't have in the box.
I haven't even scratched the surface in this box yet. I'm having fun. Should I continue this thread as I dig?
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Please do continue, Tom. No doubt many of us are enjoying this as much as you are.
--Doug
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I see auxiliary markings! 
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some comments on these covers
the dog cover is fabulous, and the letter even more so. "witch" is the phonetic approximation of "which," and there are others. my collection of civil war correspondence, and my dyslexic daughter, both illustrate this point wonderfully
Elmer Long was both a stamp and seal dealer, among the more prolific of seal price list distributors
i always enjoy ironic juxtapositions, as with the Dental Health month machine cancel and that president with the wooden teeth.
and the Cameroon cover is so unusual a destination.
nice Tom
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The dog letter is great 
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Thanks for the feedback and comments! So let's go one more time! These were my favorites from last evening's dive into the box...
There are a fair number of 19th century covers in the hoard. This one is a bit torn and wrinkled, but the fancy cancel is interesting. Is that a leaf? There is no other indication of where it was mailed from, but it was addressed to St Louis.
A nice commercial cover from 1886 from a surgical instrument company in New York City. You can only imagine what instruments were sold for what surgery, or the credentials one would need to operate.
It was a fair cover on the postal stationary (which someone called out the catalog number) but when you flip it over... whoa! A very nice Maltese cross receiving cancel
from Leonardsville, NY. Also note that the mail only took a day in 1886.
Here's one that could ruin your whole day! You go to the mailbox, retrieve the mail and see that black border and freeze! Yea, not a good sign at all. This one was empty, so we don't know who died.
I did mention that this collection is full of World War II covers. Here is a nice domestically used one honoring our servicemen.
This one is a bit more interesting since it was a sailor. It has a censor stamp and I have no idea why it's a double rate cover. It went through the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, so it was probably written on a ship. On the back it identifies the printer "Designed, Printed and Embossed by "The Original" Crosby Envelope Manufacturer. WG Crosley, CCM US Navy Retired, 631 Beacon St, San Pedro, Calif.
An interesting precancel using two half cent stamps, mailed out of Chicago. There is no indication of the sender but I gather it was for a children's charity. A nice clean cover priced at $3 on the back. I may have paid that for it too!
I think that everyone knows that postcard collecting was the rage in the early part of the 20th Century. I find a lot of my cancels on cards, especially the older "Address Side Only" cards make for attractive covers. The usage and the image often do not match, as is the case with this one. The card is of a bank in New Jersey, but the usage is from an RFD Carrier in Gouverneor, NY in St Laurence County. It was a tiny little town still with only 7000 souls in the 2010 census. RFD carriers were responsible to provide their own cancellation device, which is why many have manuscript cancellations. This cover may have been picked up at one house and delivered to another on the same route. This one goes right into the Ben Franklin collection!
The lot has a load of nice machine cancels, and here's a clean strike of a flag cancel from the Roxbury Station branch in Boston. It was forwarded to Mr Teny, but didn't receive a pointing finger cancel. I'm sure a flag cancel collector would want this cover.
And back to the war! While soldier mail has been collected and survives in good numbers interesting pieces of history like this rationing board card are hard to find. The Sickel Furniture Company seems to have qualified for some gas for their trucks.
Always look at the back of your covers! Just like postage dues and special delivery stamps, I choose to have my Christmas seals on cover. It's nice when they are on the front side, and even tied by cancellation, but most of them were licked and stuck to the backs of envelopes as was this one here. Not only does it have the standard 1950 seal, but also two seals from the Armenian Evangelical Church of New York. I'll bet those are hard to find.
So those are the selection for today. Hope everyone enjoys.
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Great Covers - love the maltese cross!
In recognition of your war cover efforts THE WPA
rewards you with that WW staple
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The Dixie Hound cover depicting the dog is very common here in Michigan. At a Kalamazoo show, one of the dealers had hundreds of these covers--many with inserts. At an earlier table another dealer had maybe 5--possible early morning purchase from fellow dealer.
Contents are always interesting.
Bruce
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A fairly large dog farm in its day
http://www.americanhoundsmen.com/dixiekennel.html
$22 must have been a chunk for a coon hound in 1930 
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This was one of my hardest to find cover ever
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Why would you think tha is, Perry?
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Took years to find this cover and it covers WWII era which I especially enjoy collecting. image above
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Did you forget to post an image or where you referring to the previous post?
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To my mind the cachets on the cover to the UK are USPS not Royal Mail markings.
My reasoning is as follows -
The original "return for postage" cachet is preprinted in cents rather than pence.
The typeface on the fraction box is "wrong" for UK. Also this was obviously applied at the same time as the decision to return for postage was rescinded, and so must be USPS too.
However I find it difficult to reconcile 10/13 with a 5c deficiency. 10c is double the deficiency but where does the 13 come in ? 10 pence is too little to charge ( by R. Mail) for a 10c charge - with the exchange rate at the time at least 15p plus a standing charge would apply. Also on the front of the cover there are no obvious UK markings at all.
My opinion is that the deficit was conveniently ignored by Royal Mail ( in the same way that stamps often go through the mail uncancelled).
Not a criticism but it is often easiest to accept the obvious rather than digging a little deeper. In any case I think that this is a more intersting cover than immediately meets the eye, and definitely deserves this exposure rather than languishing in a dealers junk box !!
Malcolm
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11:04:52pm
I agree that both auxiliary markings ("cachets" means something else to me) are US. It seems to me that you are correct, that it was first marked as "return for postage", but then they took pity on the sender and sent it postage due.
The "above the line" denomination in these postage due markings is in local currency, whereas the "below the line" denomination is in "gold centimes", which is the unit of currency used by the UPU for accounting.
I do not know the exchange rate for US$ to gold centimes at this time to test/prove my hypothesis. Maybe somebody else can find it.
Repeating the image for continuity:
Roy
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Roy
I follow your reasoning, but I am not sure that I agree with your conclusion.
The 13 below the bar is preprinted and therefore constant. The handwritten 10 is presumably variable. Therefore the relationship between the two must also be variable. By your hypothesis a comparison of cents to gold centimes above and below the line must be constant.
My opinion is that 10 over 13 is some sort of fraction ( or as an outside case a multiplier). It is possible that a ratio of 1:13 is the relationship of 1 cent to 1 gold centime or vice versa - therefore the due amount is double the deficiency multiplied or divided by 13 - but in that case where is the fraction converting that into pence ?
To get a proper explanation it is necessary to look at another example with a different deficiency ( over 13), preferably with the due amount in another currency.
An interesting conundrum, and an intellectual challenge to boot.
Malcolm
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12:08:27pm
We are both wrong!
See this page for a rather complex explanation of the new "Vienna Rules" sstablished by the UPU that went into effect Jan 1, 1966:
http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca/2010/06/unpaid-and-underpaid-international.html
"Unpaid and Underpaid Mail
1. Items on which a charge is to be collected after posting, either from the addressee or, in the case of undeliverable items, from the sender, are marked with a T stamp (postage due) in the middle of the upper part of the front : beside the impression of this stamp the Administration of origin enters very legibly in the currency of its Country the double or single amount, as the case may be, of the underpayment, and under the fraction line, that of its charge valid for the first weight step letters.
....
3. The delivering Administration marks the item with the charge to be collected. It determines this charge by multiplying the fraction resulting from the data mentioned in paragraph 1 by the amount, in its national currency, of the charge in the international service to the first weight step for letters.
"
So, it turns out that 10c is double the deficiency, and the 13 is the "under the fraction line, that of its charge valid for the first weight step letters."
I will leave the exercise of deciding if it was correctly applied to the reader! It is noted in the article above that Canada Post incorrectly applied the new rules for 6 months.
Roy
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12:42:59pm
So, on further reflection, I think the US Post Office used an old handstamp, dating from the time that international airmail rates were 13c. Based on reading the article, I believe the denominator in the handstamp should have been "20", being the then current international airmail rate (unless there was a 13c concession rate to the UK that I don't know about).
That would make the fraction 10/20 and the British postage due amount one half of the airmail letter rate to the USA, which was 1sh6d, or 9d postage due, which they apparently never collected, possibly because they knew the calculation was wrong.
Roy
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good conjecture Roy
there WAS a 13c domestic AM rate, and that's likely the handstamp we see being used.
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I love all this, but that cover to Cameroon was cancelled in Louisville, not St. Louis.
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I kinda abandoned this thread, but life had gotten in the way! Busy time with work and trying to get in all the year end goals. And we had a new granddaughter born this week! Our first grandchild. So stamps and such took a back seat. Let's dig a bit more in the big box!
Since it is Veterans Day weekend, and since the lot had a few hundred old military pieces, we will start off with this super WWII APO 884 cover. It has a very faint censor marking, and a former owner researched the APO to India.
And some Viet Nam War era covers too. Here's a cover from a sailor on the USS Galveston. You gotta love his interpretation of Household Finance Company! I wonder if his check cashed!
And here's one from someone who actually could spell! He was stationed on the USS Oriskany. There are a bunch of these ship covers of this era in the box, but alas, someone cut the down to just full cover fronts.
I'm a sucker for correct postal usage so I love this cover. No, it's not a first day cover, I checked. Just nice usage with a slogan cancel. It is safely tucked in my USA album for this stamp issue.
Some nice coast to coast usage on a 1930 airmail stamp. I can only imagine the trip and what airplanes were used! And sometime in the distant past someone priced this cover at a nickel. It's in my airmail collection. I prefer this honest usage to the many easy to find first flight covers.
A very interesting cover from Alaska. Note that the return address is from Mrs. Frank E. Smith in Minnesota. Still it was mailed from Fairbanks, Alaska. It is addressed to Frank E. Smith in Fort Yukon, Alaska.. probably where he told the Mrs. he'd be and guess what? He wasn't there. I don't see a return to sender marking on this cover, so I have no clue where it wound up before it was put in the big box! I've included both sides since it has very nice 1935 territorial cancels.
We have talked about Postage Due earlier in this thread. Here's a proper USPOD Postage Due Bill. The postage of $1.76 was paid with current postage due stamps and was postmarked in Manchester, New Hampshire. This one goes right into my Postage Due album.
And we'll finish up today with an interesting First Day Cover. It's on a souvenir card, actually light paper, from the 1947 New York International Stamp Show. It was the first day of the souvenir sheet, which was cut into parts. The stamp honoring the same event was issued two days earlier. Nice combination usage, a little wrinkled but the only one I have. It went right into the collection!
Hope you enjoyed this session... we will dig deeper into the box!
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Good to see your new posting.
Congrats on the new granddaughter- hope mom and baby are doing great!
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Going back to the cover to the UK it is interesting that mistakes by individuals in the postal system can lead you up blind alleys.
Here we have an apparent error by a USPS employee, compounded by Royal Mail not collecting the actual postage due, giving a completely false impression of the circumstances.
I am not convinced that RM didn't collect the postage due because they knew the amount was in error. I don't think that employees did enormous research to find out the correct rate -they just didn't have the time ( or felt that the time spent was too expensive for the returns). It is more likely that on receipt the sterling amount was not inserted by manuscript, by the first person to handle it and hence the collection was not proceeded with.
Obviously without access to the individuals concerned ( who probably wouldn't remember anyway ) we will never know the exact circumstances, but it does show how lack of attention to detail and careless attitude to "doing the job properly" by SOME grass roots employees can derail the system.
As a former middle manager being forced through circumstances to do a low-level ( but relatively well-paid ) job I was constantly appalled by the "couldn't care less" attitude of a minority of my colleagues, even when this took more trouble than doing the job right. It is fair to say that I had a somewhat self-righteous attitude to being a conscientious employee striving to the job correctly.
I should point out that the majority of employees had sufficient self-respect and pride to do the job right, and perhaps surprisingly there was no correlation between the attitude and age ( or should I say youth ). I am conviced that a laissez-faire attitude to work leads to lack of job satisfaction - and not the other way round. I have done some pretty boring jobs in my time, and concentrating on the minutae is one way of adding interest!
Malcolm
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Who can resist those big lots of undefined covers? I bid high on a Priority Mail shoebox sized box of covers from one of my favorite eBay dealers and won much lower than anticipated. I'm having fun going through it and finding interesting things. As many of you know, I'm easily amused so here's some covers that have struck my fancy on a lazy and rainy Sunday afternoon...
This one goes right into my "Cool Covers" album. Who can resist a cover with a large illustration of a dog? What endears it even more is the letter that was enclosed. I like the simplicity of 1936... "I am sending $5.00 as down payment on dog.... I will send money from time to time..." Interesting transaction. Did Marcus ever get his doggies? And while there was a letter inside, there as no $5.00. Believe me I looked!
Falling into the category of interesting usage is this 1967 airmail cover to England. The sender put three of the David Thoreau commemoratives on it, but the airmail rate then was 20 cents. At first the Brits thought they'd send it home for more postage, but probably realized that was more of a cost to the system then the sender so they billed the recipient. Anyway, it makes for an interesting cover that is now on the Thoreau page in my USA album.
Per my own free range way of collecting USA, I decided that Special Delivery and Postage Due stamps were more interesting on cover. Here's two covers that made their way in haste to Trenton State College, now known as the College of New Jersey once Trenton got a bad name.
The certified cover uses the Liberty Series Robert E Lee 30 cent stamp, so that's where this cover resides in my USA collection. And of course the Special Delivery stamp is on that page in the Special Delivery / Postage Due album.
Airmail to Cameroun, West Africa using two nice US Airmail stamps. Nicely canceled from St Louis with two different types of cancel. That makes it a keeper.
I said before that I do like interesting usage. Not many people saved their junk mail, so I find a precancel on cover interesting. It went right into my prexie album.
Here's a WWII soldiers mail from 1945. It seems Edwin was mailing a letter to his wife back in New Jersey from Haag, Germany, which is where APO 200 was at the time. This was a little over a month after Germany's surrender and sharp eyes will see that the airmail stamp is the bottom stamp of a booklet pane. I don't know what would make this a double rate piece, but you think the post office could've done a war hero a favor?
Side note, this box is chock full of WWII era covers, even some WWI ones. I believe I'll get my money's worth just studying this bunch. Oh, I feel a new collection coming on!
A permit card with $1.20 postage due. As a former company mail boy, let me explain how this works.. Every day when a permit holder retrieves their mail, they get a slip with the total postage due for all the pieces that have come in that day. You take the slip up to the counter, and pay the postage due to retrieve the items. Back in the day, postage due stamps were used to record the revenue. So each day one piece of mail would become the receipt for the postage paid. As you see here.
Right into my postage due collection!
And wouldn't ya know! I found a New Jersey postmark I didn't have in the box.
I haven't even scratched the surface in this box yet. I'm having fun. Should I continue this thread as I dig?
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Please do continue, Tom. No doubt many of us are enjoying this as much as you are.
--Doug
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
some comments on these covers
the dog cover is fabulous, and the letter even more so. "witch" is the phonetic approximation of "which," and there are others. my collection of civil war correspondence, and my dyslexic daughter, both illustrate this point wonderfully
Elmer Long was both a stamp and seal dealer, among the more prolific of seal price list distributors
i always enjoy ironic juxtapositions, as with the Dental Health month machine cancel and that president with the wooden teeth.
and the Cameroon cover is so unusual a destination.
nice Tom
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01:03:57pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
The dog letter is great
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Thanks for the feedback and comments! So let's go one more time! These were my favorites from last evening's dive into the box...
There are a fair number of 19th century covers in the hoard. This one is a bit torn and wrinkled, but the fancy cancel is interesting. Is that a leaf? There is no other indication of where it was mailed from, but it was addressed to St Louis.
A nice commercial cover from 1886 from a surgical instrument company in New York City. You can only imagine what instruments were sold for what surgery, or the credentials one would need to operate.
It was a fair cover on the postal stationary (which someone called out the catalog number) but when you flip it over... whoa! A very nice Maltese cross receiving cancel
from Leonardsville, NY. Also note that the mail only took a day in 1886.
Here's one that could ruin your whole day! You go to the mailbox, retrieve the mail and see that black border and freeze! Yea, not a good sign at all. This one was empty, so we don't know who died.
I did mention that this collection is full of World War II covers. Here is a nice domestically used one honoring our servicemen.
This one is a bit more interesting since it was a sailor. It has a censor stamp and I have no idea why it's a double rate cover. It went through the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco, so it was probably written on a ship. On the back it identifies the printer "Designed, Printed and Embossed by "The Original" Crosby Envelope Manufacturer. WG Crosley, CCM US Navy Retired, 631 Beacon St, San Pedro, Calif.
An interesting precancel using two half cent stamps, mailed out of Chicago. There is no indication of the sender but I gather it was for a children's charity. A nice clean cover priced at $3 on the back. I may have paid that for it too!
I think that everyone knows that postcard collecting was the rage in the early part of the 20th Century. I find a lot of my cancels on cards, especially the older "Address Side Only" cards make for attractive covers. The usage and the image often do not match, as is the case with this one. The card is of a bank in New Jersey, but the usage is from an RFD Carrier in Gouverneor, NY in St Laurence County. It was a tiny little town still with only 7000 souls in the 2010 census. RFD carriers were responsible to provide their own cancellation device, which is why many have manuscript cancellations. This cover may have been picked up at one house and delivered to another on the same route. This one goes right into the Ben Franklin collection!
The lot has a load of nice machine cancels, and here's a clean strike of a flag cancel from the Roxbury Station branch in Boston. It was forwarded to Mr Teny, but didn't receive a pointing finger cancel. I'm sure a flag cancel collector would want this cover.
And back to the war! While soldier mail has been collected and survives in good numbers interesting pieces of history like this rationing board card are hard to find. The Sickel Furniture Company seems to have qualified for some gas for their trucks.
Always look at the back of your covers! Just like postage dues and special delivery stamps, I choose to have my Christmas seals on cover. It's nice when they are on the front side, and even tied by cancellation, but most of them were licked and stuck to the backs of envelopes as was this one here. Not only does it have the standard 1950 seal, but also two seals from the Armenian Evangelical Church of New York. I'll bet those are hard to find.
So those are the selection for today. Hope everyone enjoys.
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07:28:29pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Great Covers - love the maltese cross!
In recognition of your war cover efforts THE WPA
rewards you with that WW staple
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08:49:27pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
The Dixie Hound cover depicting the dog is very common here in Michigan. At a Kalamazoo show, one of the dealers had hundreds of these covers--many with inserts. At an earlier table another dealer had maybe 5--possible early morning purchase from fellow dealer.
Contents are always interesting.
Bruce
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09:05:10pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
A fairly large dog farm in its day
http://www.americanhoundsmen.com/dixiekennel.html
$22 must have been a chunk for a coon hound in 1930
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
This was one of my hardest to find cover ever
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Why would you think tha is, Perry?
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Took years to find this cover and it covers WWII era which I especially enjoy collecting. image above
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Did you forget to post an image or where you referring to the previous post?
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04:41:08am
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
To my mind the cachets on the cover to the UK are USPS not Royal Mail markings.
My reasoning is as follows -
The original "return for postage" cachet is preprinted in cents rather than pence.
The typeface on the fraction box is "wrong" for UK. Also this was obviously applied at the same time as the decision to return for postage was rescinded, and so must be USPS too.
However I find it difficult to reconcile 10/13 with a 5c deficiency. 10c is double the deficiency but where does the 13 come in ? 10 pence is too little to charge ( by R. Mail) for a 10c charge - with the exchange rate at the time at least 15p plus a standing charge would apply. Also on the front of the cover there are no obvious UK markings at all.
My opinion is that the deficit was conveniently ignored by Royal Mail ( in the same way that stamps often go through the mail uncancelled).
Not a criticism but it is often easiest to accept the obvious rather than digging a little deeper. In any case I think that this is a more intersting cover than immediately meets the eye, and definitely deserves this exposure rather than languishing in a dealers junk box !!
Malcolm
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01 Nov 2017
11:04:52pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
I agree that both auxiliary markings ("cachets" means something else to me) are US. It seems to me that you are correct, that it was first marked as "return for postage", but then they took pity on the sender and sent it postage due.
The "above the line" denomination in these postage due markings is in local currency, whereas the "below the line" denomination is in "gold centimes", which is the unit of currency used by the UPU for accounting.
I do not know the exchange rate for US$ to gold centimes at this time to test/prove my hypothesis. Maybe somebody else can find it.
Repeating the image for continuity:
Roy
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11:24:05am
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Roy
I follow your reasoning, but I am not sure that I agree with your conclusion.
The 13 below the bar is preprinted and therefore constant. The handwritten 10 is presumably variable. Therefore the relationship between the two must also be variable. By your hypothesis a comparison of cents to gold centimes above and below the line must be constant.
My opinion is that 10 over 13 is some sort of fraction ( or as an outside case a multiplier). It is possible that a ratio of 1:13 is the relationship of 1 cent to 1 gold centime or vice versa - therefore the due amount is double the deficiency multiplied or divided by 13 - but in that case where is the fraction converting that into pence ?
To get a proper explanation it is necessary to look at another example with a different deficiency ( over 13), preferably with the due amount in another currency.
An interesting conundrum, and an intellectual challenge to boot.
Malcolm
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03 Nov 2017
12:08:27pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
We are both wrong!
See this page for a rather complex explanation of the new "Vienna Rules" sstablished by the UPU that went into effect Jan 1, 1966:
http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca/2010/06/unpaid-and-underpaid-international.html
"Unpaid and Underpaid Mail
1. Items on which a charge is to be collected after posting, either from the addressee or, in the case of undeliverable items, from the sender, are marked with a T stamp (postage due) in the middle of the upper part of the front : beside the impression of this stamp the Administration of origin enters very legibly in the currency of its Country the double or single amount, as the case may be, of the underpayment, and under the fraction line, that of its charge valid for the first weight step letters.
....
3. The delivering Administration marks the item with the charge to be collected. It determines this charge by multiplying the fraction resulting from the data mentioned in paragraph 1 by the amount, in its national currency, of the charge in the international service to the first weight step for letters.
"
So, it turns out that 10c is double the deficiency, and the 13 is the "under the fraction line, that of its charge valid for the first weight step letters."
I will leave the exercise of deciding if it was correctly applied to the reader! It is noted in the article above that Canada Post incorrectly applied the new rules for 6 months.
Roy
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03 Nov 2017
12:42:59pm
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
So, on further reflection, I think the US Post Office used an old handstamp, dating from the time that international airmail rates were 13c. Based on reading the article, I believe the denominator in the handstamp should have been "20", being the then current international airmail rate (unless there was a 13c concession rate to the UK that I don't know about).
That would make the fraction 10/20 and the British postage due amount one half of the airmail letter rate to the USA, which was 1sh6d, or 9d postage due, which they apparently never collected, possibly because they knew the calculation was wrong.
Roy
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
good conjecture Roy
there WAS a 13c domestic AM rate, and that's likely the handstamp we see being used.
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
I love all this, but that cover to Cameroon was cancelled in Louisville, not St. Louis.
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
I kinda abandoned this thread, but life had gotten in the way! Busy time with work and trying to get in all the year end goals. And we had a new granddaughter born this week! Our first grandchild. So stamps and such took a back seat. Let's dig a bit more in the big box!
Since it is Veterans Day weekend, and since the lot had a few hundred old military pieces, we will start off with this super WWII APO 884 cover. It has a very faint censor marking, and a former owner researched the APO to India.
And some Viet Nam War era covers too. Here's a cover from a sailor on the USS Galveston. You gotta love his interpretation of Household Finance Company! I wonder if his check cashed!
And here's one from someone who actually could spell! He was stationed on the USS Oriskany. There are a bunch of these ship covers of this era in the box, but alas, someone cut the down to just full cover fronts.
I'm a sucker for correct postal usage so I love this cover. No, it's not a first day cover, I checked. Just nice usage with a slogan cancel. It is safely tucked in my USA album for this stamp issue.
Some nice coast to coast usage on a 1930 airmail stamp. I can only imagine the trip and what airplanes were used! And sometime in the distant past someone priced this cover at a nickel. It's in my airmail collection. I prefer this honest usage to the many easy to find first flight covers.
A very interesting cover from Alaska. Note that the return address is from Mrs. Frank E. Smith in Minnesota. Still it was mailed from Fairbanks, Alaska. It is addressed to Frank E. Smith in Fort Yukon, Alaska.. probably where he told the Mrs. he'd be and guess what? He wasn't there. I don't see a return to sender marking on this cover, so I have no clue where it wound up before it was put in the big box! I've included both sides since it has very nice 1935 territorial cancels.
We have talked about Postage Due earlier in this thread. Here's a proper USPOD Postage Due Bill. The postage of $1.76 was paid with current postage due stamps and was postmarked in Manchester, New Hampshire. This one goes right into my Postage Due album.
And we'll finish up today with an interesting First Day Cover. It's on a souvenir card, actually light paper, from the 1947 New York International Stamp Show. It was the first day of the souvenir sheet, which was cut into parts. The stamp honoring the same event was issued two days earlier. Nice combination usage, a little wrinkled but the only one I have. It went right into the collection!
Hope you enjoyed this session... we will dig deeper into the box!
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re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Good to see your new posting.
Congrats on the new granddaughter- hope mom and baby are doing great!
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04:31:48am
re: A Big Box O'Covers!
Going back to the cover to the UK it is interesting that mistakes by individuals in the postal system can lead you up blind alleys.
Here we have an apparent error by a USPS employee, compounded by Royal Mail not collecting the actual postage due, giving a completely false impression of the circumstances.
I am not convinced that RM didn't collect the postage due because they knew the amount was in error. I don't think that employees did enormous research to find out the correct rate -they just didn't have the time ( or felt that the time spent was too expensive for the returns). It is more likely that on receipt the sterling amount was not inserted by manuscript, by the first person to handle it and hence the collection was not proceeded with.
Obviously without access to the individuals concerned ( who probably wouldn't remember anyway ) we will never know the exact circumstances, but it does show how lack of attention to detail and careless attitude to "doing the job properly" by SOME grass roots employees can derail the system.
As a former middle manager being forced through circumstances to do a low-level ( but relatively well-paid ) job I was constantly appalled by the "couldn't care less" attitude of a minority of my colleagues, even when this took more trouble than doing the job right. It is fair to say that I had a somewhat self-righteous attitude to being a conscientious employee striving to the job correctly.
I should point out that the majority of employees had sufficient self-respect and pride to do the job right, and perhaps surprisingly there was no correlation between the attitude and age ( or should I say youth ). I am conviced that a laissez-faire attitude to work leads to lack of job satisfaction - and not the other way round. I have done some pretty boring jobs in my time, and concentrating on the minutae is one way of adding interest!
Malcolm
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