Let's See Your Classic Stamps on Cover 1851-1951

Thanks for your input Vince (stanley64 ). The cover was mailed from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, a town in the neighbouring county to where Caledonia is. People from North Queens, even to this day, have closer ties to Bridgewater than to Liverpool as it was a bigger market town and about equal travel distance. I bought the cover from Maresch and not surprising they would be using initials for important publications. As you probably know, they deal in the higher end Canadian material. 

These 2 covers are recent additions to my Queens County, Nova Scotia covers. I am thankful to Vince (stanley64) for leading me to these when he saw one of them on a Canadian auction site I was not familiar with. They feature the 1898 Imperial Postage stamps (Unitrade 86). The top one has a very faint North Brookfield April 2, 1899 cancel. The lower one has a better Caledonia Corners September 26, 1899 cancel. I already have examples of both these postmarks but these two are upgrades for sure due to the stamp used. 

I spent a bit of time today putting my covers from Queens County, Nova Scotia in some kind of order and came across this one bought at an in person auction in  2002. This was before I started only buying postal history related to my home county. West La Havre-Ferry is in the neighbouring county. I try to keep reference material on covers I buy at auction and I am glad I did on this one. While reading the description I had left in the envelope I realized that the 1 cent stamp was missing. The good news is that a few months back I saw a 1 cent stamp laying on the floor and placed it in my duplicates book. When I got it out it appeared pretty obvious that it was the one that had fallen off. I saw no harm in gluing it back in place. 

Huestis is a name that appears in Halifax and St. Paul's Building probably refers to St. Paul's Anglican Church that survived the 1917 Halifax Explosion. 



It passed through the larger near by town of Bridgewater before arriving in Halifax. 



The estimate was a bit high and I have the receipt and see I got it for well under. 



I know I would have bought the cover because of where it was mailed from but the higher estimate was probably due to the noted variant in the middle 2 cent stamp. My 2000 Unitrade does not list a variety with a dot in the upper curve of the 2 on the right but on close inspection it is there in the middle stamp. Possibly newer listings have assigned a number to it. 

New to me today is this commercial cover from Maple Leaf Stamp Company of Port Medway, Queens County, Nova Scotia. It was mailed on October 27, 1934 from Port Medway with a Unitrade 197 (possibly 197c Die II) from the 1932 definitive King George V 'Medallion' Issue. 


Templeville is a small community around the Maryland/Delaware border. It was named after the Temple family. It would appear the recipient was from that family.



A few weeks back I shared this incoming cover to Maple Leaf Stamp Company from the Philippines. The search is still on for more information of the owner of the company. I miss my dad at times like this because he would probably have known the company as a young collector in the 1930's. 

Today's mail brought 2 covers I bid on and won while in Thailand. They are rather ordinary but as a collector of postmarks of Queens County, Nova Scotia they are a happy addition for me. They are both addressed to the same lady with an unusual surname I have not figured out. The first was mailed from Brookfield on June 30, 1922. The Brookfield post office name was changed to South Brookfield on August 1, 1923. The second letter was mailed on September 20, 2023 so not too long after the change. Both appear to have been written by the same person. The 1922 one included a rather long and readable letter from a man that appears to be her boyfriend. The most interesting information was about a family member arriving at the farm with a radio set that was something new to most. Both have a .03 Admiral with the 1922 appearing to be a Unitrade 108ii dark brown wet printing and the 1923 a regular Unitrade 108 brown wet printing. 

This postcard arrived recently as part of my quest for Queens County, Nova Scotia postmarks. I decided to acquire this one because of having both a Malaga Gold Mines (renamed Molega in 1955) and Brookfield postmark. I hesitated because the image of Nazareth does not exactly scream Queens County. It was mailed on March 24, 1906 and was processed at the post office in Lynn, Mass. at 8:30 AM on the 27th. It then did a short transfer to West Lynn Station by 10:30 AM the same morning. That is pretty impressive processing time from the backwoods of Queens to Massachusetts. It probably travelled by ship from a port on the coast of Nova Scotia. There are and were close ties between Nova Scotia and New England. Miss Bertha Sutherland was probably a stenographer at General Electric and may have moved there to live with relatives and find work.   

hdm1950 at least you don’t have to fret about looking for a Springhill Mines (Cumberland)

Perhaps, or she could have operated one of the many different machines at the Lynn plant.



Image Source: lynnlegacies.org/general-electric/

agree, I think the image is c. 1920, which fits with emancipation and women taking on men's work in the factories as a continuation of their role during WW I - probably for half the wages. Shorthand typists would have probably been a notch or two above the manual factory worker - they would have needed a better education to equip them for spelling and typing skills. I'd imagine the sad price being paid here, as with most unskilled factory work, is that of monotony.

Another Queens County cover for my collection from the small farming and forestry community of Buckfield, It was mailed on February 1, 1934 to Dr. A.W. Chase Medicine Co. Ltd. of Toronto. I suspect the sender was ordering a Calendar Almanac the company was well known for. They were often referred to as Farmers Almanacs. The stamp is a common Unitrade 197. 
Up to a few months ago I was not aware that Buckfield had its own post office. The bible on Nova Scotian Postal History by L.B. Macpherson from 1982 had missed this one in Volume 1 Post Offices 1754-1981. It also missed Danesville in Queens County. I became aware of these from a collection of Queens County postal history that was recently donated to the Queens County Museum by Cheryl Grantham, a retired school teacher from the neighbouring county of Lunenburg. The historical society had recently scanned and shared the collection on Facebook. She gathered more detailed information from the data base at the Canadian archives. It has been fun connecting with someone with similar collecting interests. I am more interested in older covers while she likes all eras. Here is the introduction page from her collection along with her Buckfield page. 

I always love it when a cover or postcard takes me someplace new. 

This postcard was sent on April 17, 1941 from Vancouver, BC to Peter Herisch in Hut 4 [9?] at Internment Camp A in the care of the Base Army Post Office in Ottawa.




Who was Peter Herisch? He is recorded in the Public Archives of Canada as a Class C (Interned) Refugee. He was one of about 2,300 German and Austrian men (from 16 to 60) interned in the UK who were transferred to Canada early in 1940. [Department of External Affairs file: 1939-842]

At that time, German refugees, despite being largely Jewish, were detained and sent by the UK to Canada or Australia. According to a story by Catherine Solyon in the Montral Gazette (June 30, 2018) the UK changed its policy and stopped sending detainees to Canada in July 1940 after the Arandon Star, transporting German and Italian internees (and POWs), was torpedoed by a U-boat enroute to Newfoundland. This led to the release of many refugees in England. 

Camp A was located in Farnham, Quebec - east of Montreal. At first it housed refugees and civilian detainees. When the refugees were released, it closed and then reopened to house enemy merchant seaman. When the mariners were moved to another camp it again reopened for German POWs. It was eventually renamed Camp 42. 

In Canada, government Press Censorship during World War II prevented information about these internee transfers from being reported to the public. 

Peter was released from his internment on January 30, 1942. And, press censorhips notwithstanding, he and two other young men were invited six months later to be the guests at a Society Tea in Montreal. It was hosted by the Women's Refugee Committee and was reported in the Social Pages of both Le Droit and La Devoir. 

In the Spring of 1941, before his release ... this postcard was sent to him by a friend name Louise who had just arrived on the MS Heian Maru -- a Japanese passenger liner. Neither Canada nor the US was at war with Japan at that time. As far as I can make out (there is also some writing on the front of the card), she informed him that she was planning to stay with her father, a doctor, in Chicago. 

The Heian Maru was launched in 1930 and provided the NYK Line's trans-pacific service between Yokohama and Seattle with stops in Kobe and Vancouver. When the war started it was transferred to the Imperial Japanese Navy and used as a submarine tender. The ship was sunk in 1944 by American aircraft. 

The picture side of the card shows the ship underway. It seems reasonable to conclude that Louise may have obtained the card on board in which case she was likely a passenger. She may have been a German refugee herself who had made her way to the US via Siberia, China and Japan. At the time Germany was not yet at war with the USSR. On a later trip, in July, the Heian Maru was reported to have carried a number of Jewish refugees from Europe who had received transit visas from the Japanese consul in Lithuania. Something similar might well have happened on the April voyage. This needs more research. 

Another interesting story and a very nice postal artifact about a little known episode of Canadian History. 

Stamp: Canada: King George VI Definitive
Mufti Issue
2c Brown, engraved
Issued on April 1, 1937
Unitrade 232

Cancels:
Receiving Cancel - Single Ring Duplex
Outer Ring - VANCOUVER B.C.
Inner - APR 17 / 11 AM / 1941

Arrival Cancel - Single Ring Duplex
On Picture Side
Outer Ring - BASE A.P.O. CANADA
Inner - APR 24 / 1941

Censorship:
Rubber hand-stamp - EXAMINED BY CENSOR _____
Handwritten 12

Interesting ... thanks for the suggestion. 

Peter was described as a 'young' man in the newspaper items in the summer of 1942. It may be that Louise was young too and, who knows? The stamp may indeed have had a meaning for them. 

Here is a German postcard from before the war (not mine) ... it suggests that a stamp like the one on the Heian Maru postcard meant, "Ich Komme" - "I'm coming". Coincidence or not, it certainly fits the situation. 

I haven't yet found any information about his later life. There was a typed newsletter done by former Internees (Ex-Internees Newsletter) I found issue number 2 from February 1997. The editor contacted 65 people "starting with oldtime friends and those listed in Who's Whos" (sic) ... 23 replied and he started a newsletter for them. So, it's a very small sample. Also, at this point, most of the former detainees were in their 70's and four of the people on his list were over 90. On the short distribution list is "Haridge (Herisch)" ... that's all I've found so far. My working theory is that by 1997, Peter Herish might have passed, or was being supported by someone / a relative named Haridge. It might also be that at some point he changed his name. I've added searching for him to my BOLO list. 

That's cool rod222 ... I've never thought to examine the flags. Something new for the toolbox. Thanks!

Some of the local postcard people have a deal with some of the local old car people. They send them old streetscape images and the car guys are awesome at IDing the makes, models and (most importantly) years of the very tiny cars on the postcards. A great help at dating photos - especially from the first half of the 20thC.

I'm told the car guys love the challenge and the research practice (sounds like the people at TSF, eh?)