|
|
Post by dosamaniac on Nov 28, 2020 12:58:34 GMT
This thread is intended for all inland and outgoing Br. Indian civilian censored mail as well as incoming/transit mail to/via Br. India and Indian forces mail but bearing Br. Indian civilian censor marks, applied during WW2 and immediately after. I will start with this apparently dull cover. Can anyone tell what exactly is special about it? |
|
kasvik
Member 
Posts: 543
What I collect: Cancels mostly, especially Sweden Gävle and Lidingö, Switzerland Geneva, Germany Pforzheim
|
Post by kasvik on Oct 3, 2021 20:22:17 GMT
This got my attention. Goa was Portuguese-controlled India, and Portugal was neutral through World War Two. There is clue in the instruction, ‘Letter written in Italian’. Maybe the recipient was Italian, a soldier captured in North Africa by the British?
If I have it right, this was mailed on 1 July 42 from Morumugão, where it got a registered sticker for the city of Vasco de Gama, where out-of-town mail was processed. The registered sticker suggests cash, maybe a donation to the ICRC, maybe to be forwarded to their missing loved one, a forlorn hope since the ICRC normally could not do that. Maybe registration was simply an effort to ensure the letter arrived.
A letter written in the language of an enemy state invited scrutiny. It was canceled two weeks later, on 15 July 42, in Pune (Poona), where it was censored, approved (stamped) twice by supervisors, and forwarded for surface mail. Travel through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean was too dangerous in 1942. This probably sailed through Durban, as instructed.
There is no receipt stamp for Lisbon. It arrived in Geneva after two-and-half months in transit. There is a touch of irony at the bottom of the letter’s obverse side; Printed in Germany.
And a mystery for me: what is the big blue crayon cross, front and back? Huh? 
|
|
salentin
Member
collecting Germany,where I live and about 20 more countries,half of them in Asia east of the Indus
Posts: 5,621 
|
Post by salentin on Oct 4, 2021 7:21:52 GMT
Registered mail in many countries of the british area had to be marked with a (usually) blue cross.
Printed,like here on a postal stationery registered mail envelope, or applied by hand and not nescessarily in blue,like this one:
 |
|
vikingeck
Member
Posts: 3,266
What I collect: Samoa, Tobacco theme, Mail in Wartime, anything odd and unusual!
|
Post by vikingeck on Oct 4, 2021 9:39:06 GMT
The crayon cross is an ancient hark back to early British registered letters , sometimes tied with tape and fixed with a wax seal for security, eg if the letter had contained money.
Early letters with a banknote often had only half the note and the other half would be sent in a separate letter.
The tape and wax proved cumbersome and were the replaced with the simple crayon cross as seen above.
|
|
kasvik
Member
Posts: 543
What I collect: Cancels mostly, especially Sweden Gävle and Lidingö, Switzerland Geneva, Germany Pforzheim
|
Post by kasvik on Oct 4, 2021 21:01:10 GMT
I would not have guessed. A synonym for red tape? Thanks greatly vikingeck and salentin
|
|
