First Time for Everything - Postal History Sunday

Every so often, I am reminded that people who are new to Postal History Sunday might be wandering into the room and are wondering what is happening here.  In fact, some folks have been standing in the corner... waiting for me to explain what is going on for a week or so!  Thanks for waiting!

Postal History Sunday is a project I started during the Summer of 2020 in the hopes that it might help others get through stress, isolation and worry during the pandemic.  I was alarmed by the amount of material being shared that was (and is) contributing to the negative feelings of the time and I was saddened by the lack of depth in many online interactions.  In a very small way, I was hoping to provide an oasis where I could explore a hobby I enjoy (postal history) and share it in a way that was interesting, welcoming, and open to all levels of interest - from just a passing curiosity to those who love postal history even more than I do.

And, hey, if you forget about your troubles during the time it takes you to read one of these posts and gives you a little balance in your life - so much the better.

This is the 79th entry in the series that appears each Sunday on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and is cross-posted on the GFF Postal History blog.  I have been posting a new blog nearly every day on the farm blog on a wide range of topics.  You are invited to read them or ignore them.  Your choice.  It's the beauty of this sort of thing.  It will be here if you want it, when you want it - for the foreseeable future.

For now, let's get to the postal history - and for those who are curious as to who I am, read on, I'll give a quick bio at the end.

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As humans, we seem to have more interest in events that happen for the first time.  A child's first steps, a first kiss, the first time you stepped in a cowpie....  Ok, maybe not every "first experience" qualifies here.  But, in philately (stamp collecting) and postal history, we are not immune to paying attention to "firsts."  Today, I thought I would share a few ways we identify items that illustrate beginnings.

First Postage Stamps

Let's start with the "low hanging fruit" with respect to our topic by looking at the first issues of postage stamps.  Most stamp and postal history collectors are well aware of the first issue stamps for most postal issuing entities.  

For example, the folded letter shown above (mailed in the late 1840s or early 1850s) illustrates the five cent denomination issued by the United States Post Office in 1847.  On March 3, 1847, the US Congress authorized the production and use of postage stamps and this issue was made available on July 1 of that same year.  Five cents would pay for a simple letter (no more than 1/2 ounce in weight) to travel up to 300 miles inside the borders of the United States.  This rate was effective from July 1, 1845 to June 30, 1851.  If you are interested in what went on before and immediately after this rate period, you can take the links provided here:  before and after.

The letter shown above was mailed from Baltimore to Annapolis, Maryland - about 33 miles, which is well under the 300 mile limit.  Unfortunately for me, there is no clear indication as to the year date on this folded letter, but it still shows a proper use of the stamp to pay the postal rate.

Now, we should not confuse this stamp with the first postage stamp issued IN the United States.  That distinction belongs to Alexander M. Greig's City Dispatch, a private carrier in New York City, on Feb 1, 1842.  While I do not have an example of that item to show, I was able to show an 1844 issue by Hale and Company here.

The honor of the first postage stamp is given to the Penny Black issued by the United Kingdom in 1840.  While I do not have a piece of postal history to show, I do have an example of the postage stamp.  

If you look closely at this one, you might notice letters at the bottom left and bottom right.  These letters indicated the position of the stamp on the printing plate.  One thing many collectors like to engage in is finding a single copy of this stamp that contains their own initials or the initials of a loved one.  This particular item was a gift my lovely bride looked for over the course of several years until she found one that met her specifications (and her budget) for such a thing.  

If you would like to see the apex of where a collector could take this, go view Chip Gliedman's exhibit titled My Victoria.  He shows an amazing collection of this first design - all bearing the initials "C.G."

Of course, you can hunt for postal history that bears the first postage stamps from other parts of the world.  Below is an 1849 folded letter featuring the 20 centime issue for France - from their first design issued that same year (1849).  And, first issues are not always this old - for example, the first official postage issue by the Ukraine was in 1918.  If this area interests you, check out the First Issues Collectors Club.

First Day for a Postage Rate

A postal historian might appreciate the first issue of a stamp for any number of reasons - but they will also happily hunt for examples that show the first day a new postage rate was put into effect.  I've shown the ugly rooster cover before, but it deserves a place in this blog too!

The postage rate for internal letter mail in the United States had been 3 cents per half ounce since July 1, 1863 and it was not changed until October 1, 1883 - twenty years later.  And, surprisingly, the postage rate actually went DOWN to 2 cents per half ounce.

If you look carefully, you might notice that this item is postmarked on October 1, 1883 - the first day this ugly chicken, and the envelope that carried something from the Aultman & Taylor Company would only require a 2 cent stamp.

Any time there are changes in postal regulations, postal historians have an opportunity to identify items that illustrate the processes of change.  If I had the inclination, I could find an item that was properly mailed at the prior, 3 cent rate, on Sep 30, 1883 - the last day the prior rate was effective.  I could find another item that still had a 3 cent stamp AFTER October 1 because someone was unaware of the postage change.  Maybe I could even find an attempt to pay the 2 cent rate too early?  Who knows?

First Day of Issue

When I was younger, I knew of many people who focused on collecting covers that commemorated the first day a new postage stamp was issued.  These are known as First Day Covers (FDCs).  Below is a simple envelope that is postmarked on May 18, 1925 in Decorah, Iowa.  The Norse-American stamp had a denomination of five cents, which is 3 cents more than was necessary to mail it to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

But, properly paying a postage rate is not typically the main purpose of a First Day Cover.  The main purpose is to illustrate the postal use on the official day of issue - and newer FDCs typically feature artwork that is related to the postage stamp design.  While I do not do much with FDCs, I actually do have one blog that features the Norse-American issue (and the cover above) from November of 2020.  If you have interest in FDCs, you might benefit from viewing the American First Day Cover Society's webpages.  

First Flights

Another way we can look for firsts is by considering the method of transportation by which a letter was transmitted from place to place.  With the event of air mail, collectors were keen to create postal artifacts that commemorated the first flight from one location to another.

The first flight of Foreign Air Mail route number 18 was piloted by Arthur E LaPorte in a Boeing 314 for Pan American Airlines.  As was the case for most mail carried on inaugural flights, this item was clearly created to commemorate the opening of what became known as the “Southern Route" for FAM 18.  The decorative cachet was applied in New York.

If you look carefully, you will notice that the addressee is William Bilden and the SENDER is also William Bilden.  The address is "care of Postmaster" in Marseille, France - which means Bilden intended for this letter to be picked up at the post office.  Of course, Mr. Bilden was NOT in Marseille.  He fully intended that the letter would eventually be returned to him so he could save it as a souvenir from the flight.

Postal clerks were not at all unfamiliar with this strategy employed by collectors.  The envelope was marked "non reclame" on the back to indicate that it was not picked up.  The front includes a marking that reads "retour a l'envoyeur," or "return to sender," with an arrow indicating the address from whence this envelope originally came.

Above is a photo of a Boeing 314, which would be similar to the airplane that carried this envelope across the Atlantic Ocean on this first flight.  If you would like to learn more, you can go to this site, where I found this picture.  I will admit that air mail is NOT my strong suit, but I can find my way around the basics of the subject when a cover demands it of me.

First Sailings

As I've mentioned before, I tend to prefer to collect items that were not sent explicitly to create a piece of memorabilia.  Instead, I like to discover ways that a regular piece of mail might be connected to a story, such as a first flight - or a first sailing.

Shown above is a folded business letter that was mailed in 1869 fro Liverpool, England to Buenos Ayres, Argentina.  A one shilling stamp was placed on the letter to correctly pay the postage - 1 shilling per 1/2 ounce effective from Apr 2, 1866 to Aug 31, 1877.  All in all, it's a decent example of a simple letter from the UK to Argentina during that period.

But, my attention is drawn to the docket at the top left that reads "p Pascal."  During that period of time, it was fairly common for mail to bear the name of the ship on which the letter was intended to depart.  So, if we were curious, we could do a little searching for a ship named Pascal and maybe learn more about it and this letter.

Unidentified Lamport & Holt ship - configured similarly to Pascal

The folded letter is dated April 19, 1869 - the same date as the postmark - in Liverpool.  And, it gives the detail of the intended route "per Pascal str from Liverpool & French Mail via Bordeaux."  However, this is one time you should not believe everything you read.  The Pascal was scheduled to sail to Lisbon, then Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Ayres - maybe there was also a stop in Bordeaux, but that was not among the major ports listed.  Also, the next ship leaving Bordeaux for the same destinations was not scheduled to depart until April 25, so transferring the letter off of the Pascal would have made no sense.  Instead, I am fairly certain this cover stayed on the Pascal for the entire ocean voyage.

from London Daily News April 21, 1869

Sure enough, a little bit of searching found a London newspaper reporting the departure of the Pascal from Liverpool.  Here we learn that this particular steamship was owned by the Brazil and River Plate Steam Navigation Company (also known as the Lamport & Holt Line).  This gives enough information for me to research that particular ship a little bit further.

My first stop was the Ship's List website which provides us with an overview of the Lamport & Holt Line and a list of ships attributed to that line.   This list includes two Pascals, of which this is the first, with a date of build-date of 1869.  Clearly, this ship was not very old when this letter was carried across the Atlantic.

This is where things get a bit odd.  The detail for the Pascal on the Ship's List indicates that it was built by Andrew Leslie & Company at Hebburn-on-Tyne (UK) - but the launch date is shown as Dec 13, 1869.  Her maiden voyage is listed as April 20, 1870 - a full year LATER than this letter, which clearly shows it was intended to be carried on this ship.  The newspaper clipping seems to correspond with the letter as well.  But, there is still doubt - so I did a little more digging.

The Ship's List lists the book Merchant Fleets by Duncan Haws (vol 34) as the source for its information.  It is possible that the conversion to the website introduced an error or perhaps Haws transcribed the detail for this ship incorrectly from the original source documents.

It turns out there is also a website that tracks all of the Tyne-built ships which uses primary source material such as newspapers, contemporary ship registers and other materials - probably just as Haws does.  This site shows the "launch date" as 13/02/1869 and the date the transfer of ownership to Lamport & Holt as March 22, 1869.  This lines up better with the April 20, 1869 maiden voyage indicated by this piece of postal history and the newspaper article.  Also, it is easy to see how someone might miscopy the 13/02/1869 date as 13/12/1869 (remember Europe typically uses day, month, year order).

In the end, I feel I have confirmed that this letter was carried on the maiden voyage of a new steamship in 1869.

 

Even more interesting is this screen capture from an auction some years ago.  I have removed a few details that might identify the auction company... in fact, I don't even remember which auction company it was anymore, so don't ask.  I came across this the first time I started researching this cover a few years ago.  It is likely that they also were relying on the Ship's List for information.  It is a fine source, so I see nothing wrong with this.

However, as is often the case when a large task with lots of details are undertaken, some things can slip through.  The description of the cover clearly states the postmark is 1869, yet the description of the ship says it sailed in 1870.  If you look to the bottom, the item went unsold - possibly because the special selling point (a first voyage) was in doubt with the different dates.

And now we can bring you to the story of how I came to be the present day caretaker of this particular item.  Unsold individual lots in auctions tend to become parts of group lots in later auctions.  These group lots are purchased by postal history dealers (yes - there are people who do this as a profession!) and they separate items out and price them.  I came across this in that dealer's stock and found the price to be very reasonable and within my budget (which would not have been the case in the auction).

Now, I have re-united this cover with its history.  Or at least, what I feel is a more accurate portrayal of that history.  Hopefully, I got it right.

Hey! There's a first time for everything!

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Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoyed this week's Postal History Sunday.  I promised a quick biography for those who are curious - so here it is!

For those who do not know me, my name is Rob Faux (pronounced "fox") and I have been collecting and learning about postal history since the late 1990s, but I have been a stamp collector most of my life.  My specialty is collecting postal history from the 1850s through 1870s and I really focus on material featuring the 24-cent stamp from the US 1861 issue.

Outside of the hobby, Tammy (my lovely bride) and I own/operate a small-scale, diversified farm (vegetables & poultry).  I also hold a job with the Pesticide Action Network as a part of their Communications Team.  In a prior life, I worked to acquire a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Adult Education, teaching at a couple of different universities for a time.

Our farm, the Genuine Faux Farm, has maintained a blog since 2009.  The companion postal history blog has been active since 2017.  Postal History Sunday started in August of 2020 and will continue for as long as I have energy for the project.

Have a good remainder of your day and have a great week to come!