vikingeck
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What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Dec 5, 2021 12:48:04 GMT
Here I am again with a great piece of postal History! just acquired on ebay ![]() A rather scruffy postcard from Port Said in Egypt it went to SAMOA by way of Ceylon and New south Wales (see the postmarks of COLOMBO and SYDNEY) ![]() ![]()  The stamps are each worth a miserly 20c each in Scott #43 , #44(x2) no reason for excitement there then! As a damaged early post card value maybe $5-$10 so not very exciting either  I guess the destination is vaguely interesting if you collect EGYPT postcards .. Not a lot of connections between Egypt and Samoa at the best of times. It is more interesting if you collect SAMOA as I do however............. Not a lot of connections between Egypt and Samoa at the best of times. But this is 1898 and it is addressed to a sailor " Machinist mate Ravi SMS BUSSARD German man of War Apia". At that time Germany and Britain had warships exercising gunboat diplomacy in Apia harbour. Bussard had been on station since 1894 The local supporters of Chief Mata'afa were engaged in yet another round of civil war with the supporters of the Malietoa High Chief (King). Normally the Europeans were not interfered with in these conflicts, which usually only produced a small number of casualties on either side with a few decapitated heads collected as trophies. However as the European traders were suppling guns and ammunition to the rival factions, stoking the fire and increasing the gunshot casualties , this was a bit more serious and disruptive . Hence the Gun boats. SMS Bussard (Buzzard) was an armed Cruiser and was there with Sister ship SMS Falke (Falcon) in company with HMS Porpoise and Royalist. Both navies bombarded the rebels from the sea and landed naval parties to intervene. this time there were several German and a few British casualties. In 1899 at the treaty of Berlin With the death of King Malietoa, The Mata'afa was made King under the Kaiser, The Samoan Islands were divided between Germany and USA . Britain withdrew any claim in exchange for interests elsewhere in the Pacific, and as usual the Samoans had to accept the new status as a colony. |
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bcuddy
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Post by bcuddy on Dec 5, 2021 16:45:02 GMT
I can't believe it is 8 months since I last posted in this thread. Have I not seen any interesting Postal History since March   Well of course I have, The Stamp collector looks at the stamp and sometimes tears it off for soaking The Postmark collector looks at the cancel The postal Historian looks at the rate, the usage and the datestamps to trace the route The Social historian looks at the name and address Here is something for all of these collectors. 1.First, the stamps are GB 1d red Die 1 , Reserve plate 2 SG 17 but poorly centred not terribly interesting. 2.The cancel is barred oval " "O*O". now that is interesting. It was used by the British Army Post Office in the Crimea war 1853-56. and the writer has put the date August 9th 1855 at the top
3.Now the rate At that time 6d was the foreign letter rate in Europe, but Serving Soldiers got a half price concession rate of 3d so that pays to GB . Unfortunately the letter had to be re addressed, so and extra 1d "/ "has to be added. and we have a datestamp of Windsor AU 24 when that happened
4.The Address is to " the Viscount Hinchingbrook, Eton" . This is the title of the eldest sons of the Earl of Sandwich. This Gentleman was a 16 year old pupil at Eton College in 1855, in later life on the death of his father he became the 8th Earl of Sandwich.
5 Originally the route was written "Via Marseilles" because the quickest route from the Crimea was French steamer across the Mediterranean and train through France to Britain. When it was readdressed the postal clerk in Windsor scored out the Marseilles as it was no longer relevant.
When we look at the back the real fun with routing begins as there are 6 postmarks to add to the two on the front 8 postal officials involved handling this precious letter delivered from a war Zone in 2 weeks !
BRITISH ARMY POST OFFICE AU13
CX AU23 (Faint London arrival)
WINDSOR AU23
ETON AU 24
The WINDSOR mark from the front AU24 for readdressed
E CROWN U 25 AU ( London inspection )
HUNTINGDON arrival AU25
Can you shed any light on why it had to be readdressed in Windsor? Would this mean that it was originally sent to Eton, but the recipient was in Huntingdon? And would the recipient have paid the 1d to be readdressed? |
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vikingeck
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Post by vikingeck on Dec 5, 2021 17:11:03 GMT
Hi bcuddy , Windsor is the nearby town to Eton and a main Post office and railway station. The letter would have been delivered to Eton College where young Viscount Hinchingbrook was a pupil, but arrived in August during school holidays.  The delivery to Eton College meant that the letter had left the hands and responsibility of the Post Office (they had delivered it as addressed) So forwarding with a new address meant it would have to pay British inland rate postage one penny. Probably someone at the school, a resident master, readdressed the letter to the pupil's home, Hinchingbrook Castle near Huntingdon. That person would have taken it to nearby Windsor and paid the penny for forwarding the letter (otherwise the recipient would have had to pay) |
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bcuddy
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Post by bcuddy on Dec 6, 2021 13:35:40 GMT
Neat. Thanks for the follow up.
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marki
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Post by marki on Dec 28, 2021 13:28:42 GMT
I have been looking for a thread or sub board specifically dealing with POSTAL HISTORY but couldn't find one. I think this merits a thread on its own rather than just a listing under Bulgaria. We collect stamps and aim to build a complete country by set or series but what do we do with all those duplicates? If we have too many they become an embarrassment for storage, so we check for varieties of shade , perforations, watermarks, print flaws and keep the best. We maybe look out interesting postmarks , then what? Stamps on cover often have a story which is more interesting than the Stamps. Take a look at this piece of BULGARIAN POSTAL HISTORY :   It is 1916 . Bulgaria is at war as an ally of Germany , Austro-Hungary and Turkey. Mail even to an allied country, requires military censor.Letters are opened,resealed and handstamped with the Violet Military Censor mark. I think the signature on the front is probably the censoring officer. The letter is sent from VARNA to Vienna to a family firm of Sephardic Jews . The contents are important so the letter is Registered with the Black boxed "R" and a manuscript number 633. An extra service not often seen is the pink A.R. etiquette "avis de recepcion" advice of receipt which would carry a label to be retuned to the sender once the adressee has signed for the letter. Is there anything else? Well there is an anomaly in the date. On the back we can see "27 Ju " but the Postmark seems to be "1 -VI 916" Did the post master forget to reset the month slug for July ? Now I need to explain the postal charges can anyone help ? 40 stotinki = Rate to Austria ? + Registered ? + AR fee ? I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed reading your posts through the thread which accidentally starts with a cover from my home country. So, naturally i rushed to discover more on the rates of the time. Sadly, as I don't live in Bulgaria, couldn't use any old-fashioned books and was unable to discover online any info on that matter. Here' something on the social bit of it however. Bulgaria have had a long history with Jews, most of them being Sephardim (with, probably the most famous of them being the Nobel laureate, Elias Canetti), but also Mizrahim, Ashkenazim and Romagnoli. In Bulgaria, the family name Eshkenazi is well known after the predecessors of the family established themselves in the Black Sea city of Varna. The same goes for the Behar family, whose Bulgarian roots go to the nearby city of Shumen. So, one can assume that the addressee "Eshkenazi&Behar" were relatives to the sender (though not clear what was their degree of kinship). Anyways, today Eshkenazi and Behar families are well respected and quite popular in Bulgaria. For example, right now the very same Eshkenazy family has four first cousins who are classical musicians of world stature.
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vikingeck
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What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Dec 28, 2021 13:53:18 GMT
Thank you marki for your kind appreciation. I just enjoy the detective work finding as much information as possible about any unusual cover. So often the history is fascinating, the postmarks, the additional treatment ( in this case Censorship ) , to whom is it addressed, etc , and the stamps are of secondary interest. Cheers. Alex |
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vikingeck
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What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Jul 3, 2022 21:07:27 GMT
Well six months have passed since I made a post in this thread . I came across my notes on this modest and rather boring postcard recently
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Beryllium Guy
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What I collect: Worldwide Stamps 1840-1930
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Jul 4, 2022 7:10:14 GMT
Alex ( vikingeck ), is there supposed to be an image of a postcard in your post? I am not seeing anything, unless my browser is acting up again. |
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vikingeck
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Post by vikingeck on Jul 8, 2022 16:50:32 GMT
Sorry Chris Beryllium Guy . I got interrupted when making my post a few days ago and the Picture did not come through as planned . So here goes , starting again. Found in a £1 rummage box at Stampex in London many years ago, A boring postcard with a boring common GB stamp from 1948 ( year date absent, but refers on the reverse to Wed 16th June which has to be 1948) and a kind of weird OXFORD Datestamp ( well half a date stamp? )  Two different Handwriting in the address to S. Bogason Esquire. + a large ?. It suggests the writer did not know where S Bogason was staying and passed it to someone who could find out. I believe that was possibly the College porter at Magdalen College as we shall later learn from the reverse. Who was Bogason ? Sigurdur Bogason was a linguist and author of the first major Icelandic/English Dictionary published in 1952 [/  ] |
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vikingeck
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Post by vikingeck on Jul 8, 2022 16:58:53 GMT
i.ibb.co/R60RJYR/Picture1.jpgPart two of the puzzle and why it eventually sold on ebay for £400 !  Just invitation to dinner at Magdalen College , informal " we shan't dress"................ [ ![]() |
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paul1
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Post by paul1 on Jul 8, 2022 17:31:25 GMT
Hi Alex - great find for £1, and and as you say, eventually worth four hundred times that. I wondered if CSL had been pumping Bogason for some obscure Icelandic names since Lewis wrote a lot of fiction, but suspect the £400 was simply the going rate for his autograph/signature. Were you the lucky person who found this card?
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vikingeck
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What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
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Post by vikingeck on Jul 8, 2022 18:33:05 GMT
Yes paul1 I gave it to my wife who was a Narnia CSLewis fan. Eventually in a house move she decided we could sell it with some other stuff. The buyer was a young Author in New York celebrating the publication of his first novel and won it in the face of serious competition. As I recall I started the listing at a modest £5 with which profit I would have been content! The eventual results had me fall off my seat in excitement. Bogason , Lewis and Tolkien were all around in the 1940s- 1960s scene , all having interest in philology, Anglo Saxon, Scandinavian Sagas, Gothic languages and old Norse |
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Beryllium Guy
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Jul 8, 2022 19:36:33 GMT
Many thanks for re-posting with the images, Alex ( vikingeck). Just a couple of small tidbits from my side: As it happens, the place to where the letter is addressed, the Cotswold Lodge Hotel, is still a going concern here in Oxford. I have never stayed in the hotel, but I have had a drink in the bar there, and the restaurant has an excellent reputation. It is a beautiful building, both inside and out. On the postmark, it looks to me as if the cancel was a bit faint, so someone decided to "improve" it a bit by hand-writing over it, presumably in ink. In any case, it's a fabulous find, especially when bought for £1 and then selling for £400! A lovely piece of history accompanied by a nice profit to boot! |
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paul1
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Post by paul1 on Jul 8, 2022 20:17:59 GMT
Alex vikingeck - thanks, and I could have far more understood it had the author of the card been Tolkien who, as we know, was far more into imaginary languages and a preference for Scandinavian and Icelandic vocabulary than Lewis.
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BermudaSailor
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What I collect: British colonies, primary Bermuda
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Post by BermudaSailor on Aug 15, 2022 15:02:06 GMT
This is one of the very first covers that was censored during World War II. The war started on September 1, 1939, and Britain didn't declare war on Germany until September 3, 1939. This cover was censored in Bermuda - the main point of censorship between Europe and North America - on September 3, 1939, just three days into the conflict.  |
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vikingeck
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Post by vikingeck on Feb 10, 2023 15:26:07 GMT
I struggled to find a suitable thread for the next item, this might almost fit the bill. So friends when is a cover not a cover ? Answer : when it has been vandalised A potentially valuable piece of modern postal history ruined just because the collector was not into postal history. The perpetrator of the vandalism to save 50 pence worth of stamps has destroyed a £20 cover.  in 1965 the white majority government of Southern Rhodesia under Iain Smith declared Unilateral Independence (UDI) from Britain. The stamps of Southern Rhodesia were declared invalid by UK and so postage due was added at Aberdeen on arrival, as Aberdonians have a reputation for meanness, checking both sides of a coin before spending, it was refused by the recipient. such cards and covers are scarce enough to fetch up to £5 , but a colleague here tells me in 60 years of collecting Scottish mails and postal history he has never seen the missing “ REFUSED” before. In all, the UDI period usage , the red instruction label, the missing boxed purple handstamp “ undelivered for the reason stated” , (you can just see the corner on the upper piece,) the postage dues Cancelled because not collected, and that tantalising REFUSED H/s , would have produced an exhibition piece of unique postal history. The previous owner is now deceased and this appeared with a bundle of other stuff I am selling for his widow, I can’t bear to tell her of this distressing Philatelic vandalism. |
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Post by greaden on Feb 10, 2023 16:21:26 GMT
Stamps alone tell the story of how such abstract entities as whole countries are imagined.
Postal history shows the emergence of the modern infrastructure that makes those sprawling abstract countries possible in the first place.
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Post by smauggie on Feb 28, 2023 20:37:17 GMT
Canal Zone Slip-Up This letter was going from someone living in the Canal Zone to the US. Yet, the postal worker picked up the wrong cancel, and cancelled it as Paquebot (meaning mailed from a ship). Realizing their mistake they re-cancelled the cover using the correct cancel.  |
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stanley64
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What I collect: Canada, USA, Netherlands, Portugal & Colonies, Antarctic Territories and anything that catches my eye...
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Post by stanley64 on Aug 19, 2023 9:40:47 GMT
I have spent the last few days reviewing the auctions of the late Mr. Ron Brigham's collection of Province of Canada material (both Parts 1 & 2) in an effort to devise a plan for adding postal history to my own Portuguese Ceres collection that emulates a Grand Prix collection, albeit on a smaller budget, and came up with my own list of criteria: 1. single franked 2. large multiples 3. unusual destinations - see gc 's recent posting of a New Zealand Chalon cover here4. auxiliary markings or postmarks 5. unusual postal rates - e.g. printed matter, manuscript rate, etc.
There are some bits of postal history already in the collection, but with the criteria above, the wish / want list can be better focused.
Indeed, postal history is more that just 'Stamp Collecting'...
Have fun and happy collecting!
P.S. Does anyone know what the profession of Mr. Brigham, given his deep pockets and eye for the spectacular, was?
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Beryllium Guy
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What I collect: Worldwide Stamps 1840-1930
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Post by Beryllium Guy on Aug 19, 2023 13:47:28 GMT
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madbaker
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What I collect: (Mark) General worldwide collector (to 1975 or so) with a soft spot for Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.
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Post by madbaker on Aug 19, 2023 14:46:55 GMT
I saw one of Mr. Brigham's Large Gold exhibits at an RPSC national show in Edmonton many years ago. 2000? 2005? (It may have been the 'championship' exhibit, but that accolade came later, if i recall). I had never seen anything like it. It was incredible in all respects.
I went to see the 12d black and saw several. Saw the rarest Canadian stamp and was, well, unimpressed (different paper types don't wow me to look at them). But what sticks in my memory was a page of proof colours an early Victoria stamp (either the 1/2 penny rose or the 1c or 2c rose, I can't recall.) There were so many proofs that they were fanned out like a rainbow on the page. The colours and the quantity blew my mind.
After seeing the exhibit, I was left with the distinct impression that he was playing a much, much different game than I was. I enjoyed viewing it, then went back to my penny stamps and buck a cover boxes.  |
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