Traveling At Home

Usually the Genuinely Faux blog features at least one post about postal history during the Winter months and I came to the realization that this had not happened this year.  Rather than disappoint the millions of readers out there, I thought I would share a few things that might be enjoyable - even if you do not share my interest in this hobby.

My area of interest tends to focus on the 1860's.  It is a period that has plenty of things going on in the world and I can acquire things that are enjoyable without spending a whole lot of money.  Each time I find a new item, it gives me a chance to travel vicariously to another place AND another time - without leaving the farm house.

France to Switzlerand - 1865

One thing that might seem foreign to us is the idea that there wasn't a universal postal agreement to deal with mail between countries.  The Universal Postal Union that outlines how we send mail to other countries was initially put into place as the General Postal Union in 1876.  Prior to that countries had to negotiate treaties with each other that outlined how they would exchange mail.

The item above shows a common situation.  Someone didn't put enough postage on the letter to go from France to Switzerland.  They applied a 20 centime (French) stamp, but they should have paid 40 centimes.  The red box translates to "insufficient postage" and the red 40 tells the post office in Switzerland that the recipient would have to pay the entire 40 centimes if they wanted their letter.  Yep, that 20 centime stamp did nothing for them.  Current postal services usually only collect the amount that was not prepaid - but that was clearly not always the case.
 

Printed Matter Mail in Prussia

 You and I might call this 'bulk mail,' but we are even more likely to just call it 'junk mail.'  The idea of providing discounted rates to mailers who wanted to send out pre-printed copies of advertisements or informational brochures has been a round for a long time and most countries had provisions for what they called 'printed matter.'

 German nations would call this "drucksache" and their regulations, like most other countries at the time, required that the contents should be easily opened and inspected by postal authorities to be sure that the sender wasn't trying to send personal correspondence or other items without paying proper postage. 

This mailer used a paper band that wrapped around the flyer.  They then affixed the stamp so it attached the contents to the band.  The post office could still inspect the contents by pulling down the folded part of the printed portion (as seen above).  This item simply informs the recipient that Hermann Schwarz was going to be in their area soon.  It is not clear what exactly Herr Schwarz was going to be doing there.  Maybe selling brushes?

Where is Mantova?

The item above was sent in 1861 from Brescia to Mantova (also known as Mantua).  Both of these cities are currently in Italy.  At the time this was sent, the Kingdom of Italy was in the process of formation, but Mantova was NOT a part of it.  Mantova resides in the province of Lombardy, right next to the province of Venetia.  In 1861, Venetia was a part of Austria.  Lombardy was a part of the Kingdom of Italy - but Mantova itself remained with Austria.  Why is that?

It turns out that Mantova was part of the Quadrilatero, a set of four fortress cities held by Austria.  The other three were in Venetia.  When Austria lost the War of 1859, they were forced to cede Lombardy, but they did not give up their fortress city in Mantova.  So, while both Brescia and Mantova were in Lombardy, they were actually a part of two different countries.  So, once again, the stamp didn't cover all of the expenses and the recipient had to pay something to get their letter!

An 1863 letter in Norway

Here's one for my Mom!  Christiania is now known as Oslo, which is where this letter was posted.  Arendal is located nearly 250 km to the southwest from Christiania (Oslo) and is only 65 km northeast from Kristiansand.  At the time, Arendal was known as a prominent port in Norway, with shipbuilding being one of its primary trades.  The region also had significant mining, lumber and ironworks industries.

Spain to France 1864

If you'll recall, countries needed to negotiate systems for exchanging letters.  In most cases, they would agree upon an amount that people could prepay to get mail to the destination country.  Spain was not as good at this as other European nations.  They would exchange mails with France, but a person sending the mail could only pay for the postal service to the border.  The recipient on the other side of the border had to pay the cost of mail from the border to their home.  In this case, the stamp paid for the Spanish mail from to the border and the "5c" marking indicates that the recipient at Oloron, France had to pay 5 centimes to cover the French portion of the postal service.

I sure hope this letter was something they wanted.

Switzerland to Italy 1865

Another interesting thing about the mail during this period is that countries often recognized that communities next to the border (on both sides) would require less of the postal services than mail that came from communities further from the border.  As a result, many agreements included a lower rate for mail between communities within a certain distance of a shared border.  In this case, Splugen was pretty much on the border between Switzerland and Italy.  The destination, Chiavenna, was not all that far away from Splugen either.  The 10 centime rate was actually the same as the postage someone in Switzerland would pay for a letter that stayed in the country.

If you are wondering why Splugen sounds vaguely familiar, perhaps you have heard of the Splugen Pass?  It was one of the major passes through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland.

And now you know.