Planting A Seed - Postal History Sunday

Welcome to Postal History Sunday, featured weekly on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog.  If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with this one (the most recent always shows up at the top).

This week, you're all going to get a peek at another side of my life.  A place where pieces of postal history connect with our small-scale, diversified farm (the Genuine Faux Farm).  This time around, Postal History Sunday will focus more on the illustrations on the covers, than we will the postal markings.

It was not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, that multiple seed houses could be found in every state in the US.  Most seed houses had their own breeding programs and might tout some of their best varieties in their advertising.  

Wide Range of Breeding Programs

The Faxon Squash is listed in the Biodiversity Heritage Library as being introduced in 1894.  And here we have an advertising cover mailed in December of 1893 featuring that squash.  This item was mailed from Saugus, Massachusetts - the home of M.B. Faxon Company to a Miss Marion Faxon, who must have traveled to Aiken, South Carolina for an unknown (to us) reason.  While this was probably a use of an advertising cover between members of family, we can still be grateful that they were willing to use (and then keep) these envelopes so we can see what they look like today.

Shown above is a page from their 1894 catalogue that is made available by the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  The catalogue itself certainly features some of the varieties they specialized in, but they also offered seeds from other companies, such as Burpee.  This was a pretty common practice.  A seed company would focus on producing particular seed varieties (which this company referred to as "Faxon's specialties) and they might also work on breeding programs.  To provide a broader seed offering to their customers, seed companies like this one would often would rely on other seed producers.

If you read the text for the catalogue introduction of the Faxon Squash (shown below), this was apparently their first success at developing their own squash variety that they felt was worth marketing.

The M.B. Faxon Company had a fairly widespread distribution of their catalogs in the late 1800s - so we should not make the assumption that a this seed house only sold locally.  However, the sheer number of seed houses throughout the world meant there were many more locations and organizations seeking to select for varieties that did well under regional growing conditions.  From our own experience, we can provide you with anecdotes where a variety that went by the same name from one seed house did poorly at our farm while that same variety from another seed house did well.  In fact, we often find that seed produced in our own region (if we can find it) is better adapted to our farm.

Perhaps a short side-bar would be of interest right now?  If a seed producer desires to grow seed of a known variety, they will plant a crop with that seed and go through a process called selection as that crop progresses.  Any plant that does not look "true to type" is removed, as are weaker plants.  The idea is to select seed from those plants that are the strongest and exhibit the best qualities of the vegetable variety being grown.  Faxon was selecting seed for their "specialty varieties."

The Faxon Squash was a different matter.  This seed company was developing a hybrid by carefully cross-pollinating existing squash varieties.  This process can be a major undertaking because the pollination process is often done by hand - and multiple trials usually have to occur at the same time to see which results in the kind of fruit/plant that is desired.  Then, you have to hope that the seeds from these crosses would come back true to type, thus creating a new variety of squash.

The very nature of growing to produce seed implies careful attention to how the plants grow and how hybrid crosses pan out as they are developed.  Can you imagine how many different breeding and selection projects were running concurrently in the United States with multiple seed houses in most states?

As far as I have been able to tell, the M.B. Faxon company seems to have stopped publishing catalogues in the early 1900s and I am not sure if any strains of the "Faxon Squash" might survive today.  On the other hand, I CAN show you that we do grow several varieties on our farm that have a long history.  They are often referred to as heirloom and heritage seed.  Shown above is the Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato squash, which is a type of acorn squash. 

A.H.Ansley and Sons Hits the 'Big-time'

Shown above is another illustrated envelope with two cents of postage paying the internal letter mail rate in 1893.  This item was sent to the Perkins Wind Mill Company in Mishawaka, Indiana, by the seed company in Milo Centre, New York.  A pencil notation on the side reads, "I want a mill with graphite bearings." This would seem to indicate that this was not an offer to sell seed, but rather a request to purchase equipment.

As mentioned earlier, there were many more seed houses and they came in all sorts of sizes with many kinds of specialty crops.  Some of the smaller, more local seed producers, such as A.H. Ansley and Sons might concentrate on developing and growing out particular crops for seed.  Every so often, these companies might hit on a winner.

The smaller, local producers wouldn't necessarily have the publicity to push a particular strain, but there were certainly larger concerns, such as W. Atlee Burpee & Co that might be willing to purchase the rights to introduce it to the public at large.  Some things may be no different then that they are now, as I suspect Burpee introduced the "Perfection Wax" without giving any direct praise to Ansley.

There is evidence, however, that Ansley & Son was still in business in 1900 and they were still focusing on wax and pole beans.  The following was in the US Department of Agriculture - Division of Entomology, Bulletin No. 33 prepared F. H. Chittendon and published in 1902.

June 18, 1900, we again received specimens of beetles... with report that 
they were injurious to several acres of white pole beans at Milo Center, 
N. Y. Our correspondent, Mr. A. H. Ansley, stated that nearly one- 
fourth of the plants above ground at the time of writing were riddled 
by the insects. Attack was first noticed June 16. when only an occa- 
sional plant was being eaten, but at the date of writing many more 
of the beetles were seen, and the first plants infested were dried and 
crisp except a young center leaf just budding out. Sweet corn and 
other plants in the vicinity appeared to be exempt from attack.

The report above was in reference to the Smartweed Flea Beetle.  It's just a reminder that pests, weeds and diseases are not a new thing and it is also a reminder that nature tends to have its way with monocrop (single crop type) systems.

The Myth of Perfect Veggies Has Long Tradition

Here is an 1898 envelope featuring carrots offered by the Lohrman Seed Company in Detroit, Michigan.  You might want to note that Lohrman touts themselves as "Seed Growers and Merchants," making it clear that they both grow out seed and sell that seed to the public.  Not all seed producers created catalogs with the intent of selling to the public.  Some might, perhaps, simply grow out plants to produce seed under contract for other companies who would then sell the seed.

It is true that a grower of produce wishes that a significant portion of the crop looks like the perfect picture that is always shown in the catalog (or in this case, the perfect carrots on the envelope).  But, perfect looks have never guaranteed satisfactory taste.  Nonetheless, it is clear that consumers have always had a problem accepting that a tasty carrot just might not have that perfect wedge shape.

Lohrman's 1922 catalogue features a carrot type (Chantenay) that might well have been the model for the advertising design on our envelope.  The introduction to that catalog touts their forty years of experience, which clearly confirms their existence at the time this letter was mailed.

The letter was mailed to Cuddy-Falls Company in Amherstburg, Ontario (Canada).  According to the 1899 Essex County Business Directory, Cuddy-Falls were bankers.  Maybe the bankers wanted to grow some carrots? Perhaps they wanted to invest in their own health and well-being.

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We came in Saturday evening after completing our farm chores and reflected on the squash harvest (butternut in this case) we had just pulled in earlier in the day.  My mind was on the farm and on growing produce, so it should not be a surprise that I should fall back on this topic when faced with the reality that Sunday was only a few hours away.

I hope you enjoyed today's installment of Postal History Sunday.  Have a good remainder of your day and a fine week to come!

Oh, the Places You Can Go - Postal History Sunday

Welcome to Postal History Sunday, featured weekly on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog.  If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with this one (the most recent always shows up at the top).

The title of this week's entry might make you think of Dr. Seuss and the his final publication, Oh, The Places You'll Go - and that would be intentional on my part.  For that matter, if you are needing a little bit more Dr. Seuss in your life, the link I provided in the prior sentence goes to a Youtube reading of that particular book.  There's even an activity at the end!

Once you've had the chance to have Oh, The Places You'll Go read to you, maybe you'll remember to come back and finish reading this week's Postal History Sunday.  This week, I wanted to have a little fun and explore the places we can go (virtually) when we look at a piece of postal history.

You can go to Peru if you want to

I recognize that not everyone is willing or able to physically travel around the globe to visit the wonders that exist out there.  Yet, if we want, we can explore the world and its history virtually by looking at, studying, and researching pieces of postal history.  And, it's not even required that these pieces be expensive collector's items, though some certainly are.  An inexpensive item can capture your imagination and you can find yourself transported to a different time and a different place.

This first item was mailed in San Francisco on October 3, 1865 where it boarded a steamship to Panama.  From there, the letter took another steamship under British contract that made several stops on the South American coastline.  The postage rate for mail from the US to Peru was 22 cents per 1/2 ounce (Dec 1856 - Sep 1867), so the 24 cent stamp was clearly a convenience over-payment.  The red "12" at the top left indicates that 12 cents of the postage was due to the British for their efforts.

Actually, this particular cover allows us to travel back to a time when Peru, San Francisco and Italy intersected.  According to the paper referenced as "the Cerruti report" (1st page shown above), Nicola Larco was a prominent Italian in San Francisco beginning in 1849 - during the Gold Rush.  Larco was born in Genoa, Italy in 1818 and initially emigrated to Peru before coming to San Francisco.  For a period of almost two decades, Larco and Domenico Ghirardelli were the prominent leaders of the Italian community in San Francisco.  And, yes, I do mean the Ghirardelli that led to the present day chocolate company.

Wow, we went from saying we'd talk about Peru to chocolate all of a sudden.  It might be that kind of Postal History Sunday.  Who knows what places we will go with this next?  Not me! I'm just along for the ride that the stories take me on!

The Peru connection with Nicola Larco is fairly obvious if you look at the address, a business that must have been headed by a relative.  In fact, Larco served as the consul for Chile in San Francisco at this time.  It was not uncommon for a person with business connections to serve as a consul for another nation in larger cities.  For example, the US might have a foreign consul in cities like Cairo, Paris, and, yes, Lima to represent their business interests in those cities.

But, why did Larco go to Chile in the first place?  What sets up the scenario where he would be doing business with a relative that remained in Lima while he was based in San Francisco?  

Well, it turns out that there were centuries of connection between Peru and Italy, specifically Genoa, where Larco was born.  According to Fare l’America ou apprendre à y vivre ? L’immigration italienne au Pérou by Mario Pera:

The first Italians to arrive in Peru came with the Spanish army of conquest in the 16^th century as a result of an alliance between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Genoa. This is the reason why the first Italian immigrants to Peru came from Liguria (the region around Genoa), and predominantly from Genoa, birthplace of the expert sailors recruited by the Catholic Monarchs who captained the Spanish ships bound for America.

Well.  I could stop this Postal History Sunday right there because I just learned not one, but a few new things! But, I am still curious what other places we can go today.

You could ride a camel in the Sudan

I am hopeful that those who read this blog, but feel like postal history is a hobby beyond their reach, might reconsider as I share this next envelope sent from Sudan to the United States.  This particular item cost me a couple of dollars to purchase and I expect if I were to sell it that it would not get much more in return.  However, I have gotten a significant amount of entertainment and learning value out of it.

In fact, this February 7, 2021 PHS entry focuses on this particular cover - and I encourage you to read it if you want to learn more.  The cover was mailed in Khartoum in 1939 and went via Egypt to get to the United States.  The postage stamp design catches your imagination in a new way - perhaps even transporting you to that place along the Nile River where a postman might actually ride a camel to deliver the mail.

The story of the creation of this design, according to the Stanley Gibbons firm, was that the designer, Captain E.A. Stanton, saw the arrival of the regimental post via camel, instead of the normal riverboat delivery.  This inspired him to create this proposed design for the new stamps of Sudan to be used as the English asserted their control in that region. 

feel free to click on the map for a larger version

But, it isn't just the camels, it's the allure and history of the Nile River, which this cover likely traveled next to and probably ON during some of its voyage!

Ride a Viking ship in Estonia

I prefer to focus on the pre-UPU period (before 1875) of postal history and I really pay the most attention to the 1860's.  That doesn't mean I won't appreciate other items - especially when there is an opportunity to learn something new and maybe take a virtual trip at the same time!

My postal history hobby has its roots in stamp collecting (philately) and I can be influenced by certain stamp designs that got my attention at an earlier point in my life.   The Viking ship issue of 1919-1920 from Estonia is one such stamp.  So, when I found this item being offered for less than my lunch was going to cost, I decided it was okay to take it home with me.

The issue with things like this is that I am not knowledgeable about the rates and routes for this area during the early 1900s.   However, I was fortunate to find a very useful website compiled by Sijtze Reurich that provides all of the Estonian rates for this period. 

image from the Nordic Estonia site

Before you visit this site, let me prepare you a bit.  It contains a LOT of raw postage rate data and represents a great deal of effort.  If you want to go there to just read and enjoy, this is not the site for you.  It IS the site for you if you are wondering specifically about postage rates that include a period of hyper-inflation - where postage rates were changing over a period of days, rather than years!  In short, this is very much a reference site - and a good one at that.

According to the tables I found there, this cover was a proper payment (10 marka) for a simple letter weighing no more than 20 grams (Apr 10, 1921 - Oct 31, 1922). 

Vikings are usually associated with the coastal regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland.  For that matter, I suspect many people simply think of coastal Norway as the place where the Vikings hopped on ships to do their plundering and pillaging of surrounding coastal regions.  Well, the Estonian Vikings play an important role in the history of the whole.

According to the Nordic Estonia site, the people from the largest Estonian island were known as Oeselians and were referred to in Norse Icelandic sagas as "vikings from Estonia" or  "Víkingr frá Esthland."  The piratica was a warship that featured a high prow with a dragon or snake head and a four-sided sail and is featured on the postage stamps used to pay the postage to mail this letter.

Ice in India

The places we can go and the things we will see might include visiting an ice house in, of all places, Calcutta, India, in 1861.  The folded letter shown above was mailed in Boston late January and arrived in London on February 6th.  It took another month to find its way to Calcutta.

The postage paid was five cents, represented by the brown postage stamp at top right and the remainder of the postage was paid by Caleb Ladd.  This is a case where the "open mail" provision of the United States / United Kingdom agreement was used.  The sender in the US only had to pay for the portion of the postage that was under the US Postal Office's control.  In this case, the letter entered the control of the British Post at the point it boarded the ship named "America" in Boston.  This meant Mr. Ladd had to pay the postage for all of the services from the point the letter boarded the boat in Boston to the point it was placed in his hand.  

engraving from the Graphic, Nov 1880

Caleb Ladd was the agent for the Tudor Ice Company from 1837 into the 1860s, when the ice trade reached its peak.  Ice was harvested from Massachusetts and shipped to India.  One of the first such ships sent by Tudor started with 180 tons of ice and arrived with only 100 tons (due to melting, of course), but the trip was still quite profitable.

This interesting article by David Dickason discusses some of the reasons for the decline of this trade in the late 1860s into the 1870s.  Among the causes was the a trend towards less severe winters in the areas where ice was being harvested.  Another direct contributor to this decline, cited by Dickason, was the introduction of technologies that could manufacture ice.  Why ship a bunch of blocks of ice when you have a piece of equipment that will make what you want? 

The decline was precipitous enough that the ice house referenced on this cover was dismantled in 1882, according to the Calcutta Review.

If you would like a more complete summary of ice houses in India, this link to the Heritage Lab might be of interest to you.

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There you are!  A few examples of how postal history artifacts can lead us to interesting stories that have to do with the people, places and times that surrounds each item.  Certainly, the process of collecting ice from a lake not far from Boston and sending it to Calcutta is not necessary to discuss the postal history of the letter to India.  It doesn't really matter horribly much that we know anything about Estonian Vikings or camel riders in Khartoum or Genoans in Lima, Peru if we only want to look at the postal history aspects of the first three items.  We can still look at these pieces of old mail and learn about the postage rates, regulations and processes without these extra pieces of information.

But, when we do take the time to explore the stories outside and around postal history, we do two things:

1. We add color, depth, and interest to each item.  Suddenly, a person does not have to be deeply interested in postage rates, or things like - "which ship did this sail on?" to be interested.  Instead, the postal details are a part of a larger, more interesting whole that can attract more people to the story.
2. We provide evidence that can support our observations regarding the postal history particulars of a given item.  For example, it makes sense that the Peruvian consul in San Francisco might be willing to overpay the postage once in a while because it is a convenience. Because, surely one letter out of many is not going to be that much of a financial strain because it is a cost of doing business.

Oh, the places you can go when you pick up a piece of postal history and start to explore it.

Thank you for joining me for Postal History Sunday.  Have a good remainder of your day and a wonderful week to come!

Return to Mantova - Postal History Sunday

Welcome to Postal History Sunday, featured weekly on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog.  If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with this one (the most recent always shows up at the top). 

The city of Mantova (Mantua) has captured my imagination enough to encourage me to pick up items addressed to or from that location more than any other Italian city.  In fact, postal history to this city was the focus of a Postal History Sunday a little over one year ago.  And, we're actually going to start with one of the two items featured in that post.

My goal this time around is to illustrate many of the ways I like to look at cover and the different directions this takes the overall story.  We'll start with this item mailed in Espalion, France on November 19, 1855.  The letter had five 20 centime postage stamps representing 1 franc of postage paid.  As of July 1, 1851, the rate for mailing a piece of letter mail, weighing no more than 7.5 grams, to Mantova via Sardinia or Switzerland was 1 franc (100 centimes).  So, we've got ourselves a properly paid letter here.

The Address Panel

An interesting thing about letter mail is that there can be a very wide variety in the way the letter is addressed.  The combination of language differences, handwriting differences, and postal regulations/procedures can certainly make interpreting what is there a bit more difficult.  The address panel for the envelope shown above reads as follows:

"Italie  Monsieur Monsieur L Sartoretti avocat  A' Mantoue  Royaume Lombardo Venitieu, par Clermont Lyon et Turin"

There is a wealth of information here - as well as some interesting points of discussion.

"Italie" and "Royaume Lombardo Venitieu"

Even though Lombardy and Venetia were under the control of Austria, people clearly still identified these regions as part of Italy.  In fact, the region of Lombardy and Venetia was semi-autonomous and was identified as a "kingdom" (royaume) though it was under the control of Austria's emperor Franz Josef I from 1849 to 1859 (until 1866 for Venetia).

 

The borders shown above in a period map illustrate where Mantova is - located in the southeast portion of Lombardy. The the south is the Italian state of Parma and Romagne, which was part of the Papal States at the time this letter was sent.

"Monsieur Monsieur L Sartoretti avocat"

I have noticed the double honorific "Monsieur" on many business letters in Europe during this period.  While I have not been able to verify this (in part because I don't have enough motivation to hunt it down), this could be a bit like saying "Honored Sir, Mr. L Sartoretti."  This double honorific does not seem to be consistently applied during the 1850s and 1860s and it seems to decline in use as mail services become more available to a larger portion of the population.

Mr. Louis Sartoretti was a lawyer (avocat) in Mantova who apparently kept his correspondences, which was normal as these served as records for his business.  At some point in time, the covers from these records were made available to collectors since I have not one, but two envelopes that had been sent to him in the 1850s.

"par Clermont Lyon et Turin"

Not only was there addressing information to show the postal services who the letter was to and where they were located, the writer even included directions as to how they intended the letter to travel.  We'll see how that worked out later on!

"A' Mantoue"

I was introduced to this city as "Mantua" which is the Latin or Lombard name.  So, to those of us in the US, it would be "at Mantua."  The Italian language references it as "Mantova" and the French - "Mantoue."  A similar pattern can be seen for the Italian city of Padova/Padua/Padoue.  This is just another variable we have to deal with as we read a cover.  Different languages have different spellings and pronunciations for various cities and countries.  If you add the possibility that the person writing it doesn't know how to spell well, things can get interesting fast!

How it Got There

The markings on this cover are as follows:

Espalion Nov 19, 1855
Clermont-Ferrand Nov 20
Clermont A Paris Nov 20
Lyon Nov 21
Lyon A Marseille Nov 21
Marseille Nov 22
Mantova Nov 27

It seems that the routing indicated by the writer was followed - at least as far as going through Clermont and Lyon are concerned.  There is no marking to confirm Turin, but, that would have been the most common route after crossing the Alps for a destination in Lombardy from southern France (Marseille).  So, it is highly likely the entire route was followed as suggested.

Another option, would have been to travel next to the sea and go up from Genoa to Turin.  But, there is no evidence that can support that on the letter.  Typically dockets that gave directions were followed.  If no directions were given, postal services would have identified default routes that mail between nations would take.  They would deviate from the default if directional dockets were present OR if there were obstructions, such as weather or armed conflict, that would temporarily change the route to an alternative.

So, let's take a look at where these markings say the letter traveled.  To see a larger version, click on the map.

At the time this letter was written, there was no rail service in or near Espalion.  However, there WAS a rail terminus in Clermont-Ferrand that connected to one of the very rare rail lines that did not go only to Paris.  France was rapidly developing a 'star configuration' of rail lines with Paris at the center.  Often, if someone wanted to travel from west to east in southern France, they were often left with only the option to go via Paris!

This letter likely traveled by mail coach to Clermont-Ferrand, where they had a brand new train station.  One has to wonder if there was some amount of excitement that this option for mail now existed that might have caused the writer to be so explicit in these routing directions.

The letter was able to travel by train from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon and then by train to Marseille.  From Marseille, it was back to the mail coach to go northeast to Gap and to cross the alps until meeting up with a railway spur west of Turin.

Why aren't their postmarks for points between Marseille and Mantova?

This is a great question.  After all, wouldn't it be neat to be able to trace this letter even more accurately?  We assume it was carried through Turin (Torino), so why isn't there a marking for that city here?

It turns out Marseille and Mantova were exchange post offices. Exchange offices were post offices in each country that were identified as being able to exchange mail between those two nations.  Marseille and Mantova could exchange mail, which essentially means they would place the last marking on the letter prior to putting it into the mailbag (or other container), not to be opened until reaching the exchange office in the destination country.  

So, that's why there aren't any markings for places in between the two.  The letter was sealed up in a mailbag in Marseille.  The mailbag was marked to be for Mantova.  That meant it would not be opened until the clerk in the Mantova post office received it.

Another Letter to Louis Sartoretti, avocat

This is another envelope from the correspondence saved by our Mantovan lawyer friend.  Since, neither of the items in my collection have contents or provide any indication as to who sent these pieces of letter mail, I am not able to determine if these were private or business correspondence.  However, odds are good that they are the latter.  

This address panel reads:

"Monsieur Louis Sartoretti avocat a Mantoue, Daun(?) Lombardie-Venitie (italie)"

If you look at the prior envelope, you might notice a number of differences.  First, there is only one use of the honorific "Monsieur."  Second, the sender did not see fit to provide any postal instructions for directing this letter.

And third, there is the mysterious "Daun" that follows Mantoue.  Of course, it is possible I am reading the letters incorrectly.  It could be a shorthand reference to something else.  It is also possible that the writer misspelled something.   At this point in time, I have no idea.  It appears to have some sort of significance in naming a region - but I cannot be sure at this time.

So, what was I saying about handwriting, mispellings and different languages sometimes making it hard to decipher an address?

Um... You Need to Pay More than That!

As we mentioned in the prior post, the cost to mail an item through Sardinia to Lombardy from France was 1 franc (100 centimes).  This rate applied for pre-paid mail as well as unpaid mail.  However, there was no provision to provide credit for partially paid mail.  Therefore, part paid mail was treated as unpaid at the destination.

This item bears only a 20 centime stamp, clearly not enough to do the job.  The hand-written "timbres insuffisant" can be translated to "insufficiently stamped."  That, and the absence of a "P.D." marking made it clear that this item was not pre-paid.  You might also notice that the front of the cover does not have a big, bold "X" like the first item had.  That "X" told the carrier that no postage was due from the recipient.  Without the "X" the carrier knew to look for how much they were to collect before handing over the letter.

In this case,Monsieur Sartoretti was forced to pay 25 kreuzer - the full price that it would cost for him to mail a letter to Montpellier, France - just to receive this letter and find out what was in it!

The scribbles shown above actually DO mean something.  As most people would guess, the "25" at lower right is the due marking, instructing the carrier or clerk to collect 25 kreuzer to pay for the mail services from France to Lombardy via Sardinia.  The smudged scribble on the left reads "16/9."   

Yeah.  I know.  It seems like some sort of voodoo magic when I tell you a scrawl on one of these old envelopes means something.  It is possible that many of you saw that and figured someone was trying to draw a picture of a bird in a tree and gave it up as a bad job.  This is one of those times you might have to trust that I know what I'm doing.  Give it time.  After a while, you'll start seeing scribbles in your sleep.  Soon after that you should be able to see what I am seeing.

We'll all have to decide at that point whether that is a good or a bad thing.

The amount of postage collected was 25 kreuzer, of which 9 kreuzer covered the Austrian postage (the lower number).  The remaining 16 kreuzer needed to be given to the French and Sardinian mail services.  Of those 16 kreuzer, the French received 12 kr and the Sardinians 4 kr.   

As for the 20 centime stamp?  Well, it really did not do anything, in the end.  This was not an uncommon occurrence at the time.  Postage stamps were first introduced in France in 1849 and the idea of full prepayment for letters and using stamps to represent that payment was still kind of new. 

Simply put, people didn't always understand what they were supposed to do.

Getting from Here to There

The markings on this cover:

Montpellier Feb 9, 1857
Marseille Feb 10
Gap Feb 11
Mantova Feb 13
Arrta Di Notte (Night Arrival)

The travel time for this letter was much shorter than it was for the other letter we show at the top of the post.  However, the square marking on the back (Arrta di Notte) indicated that the letter did arrive during the night time hours.  So, we have to ask the question - was it very late on the 13th that it arrived or very early on the 13th?  At the present time, I do not know.

So, this could have arrived one day faster or almost two days faster than the last item.

Here is the map from the prior post with a small addition showing the route from Montpellier to the rail line from Lyon to Marseille.  This section was covered by a railway at the time this letter was posted in 1857 (Montpellier to Nimes should have been completed by the end of 1856).

Once in Marseille, this piece of mail likely followed the same route that the first letter did, heading up to Gap and then Besancon - on the way to Turin.  Only, this time, we have evidence that it went this way because there is a postal marking for Gap.  Most of this part of the route would still have been by mail coach until it reached the rail spur west of Turin.

And this time, Gap and Mantova served as the exchange offices.

Shown above is a portion of an 1855 map that clearly showed the rail lines running from Turin to Milan then Verona and a spur down to Mantua.  While Italy was behind much of Europe for rail development, these major northern cities were connected.

And there you are, two letters mailed to the same lawyer in Mantova about a year and a half apart.  Similar routes at the same postage rate - but with enough differences that we can tell very different stories with each of them.

In recognition of people with different levels of understanding

I am always hopeful that I can write Postal History Sunday in a way that all levels of interest in postal history might have a chance to read, understand and enjoy what is shared here.  Obviously, I don't expect any of you to take a test now that we are at this point in the blog - that has never been the point of this.  But... I also want each of you to feel you have an opportunity to understand what is written here.  

Sometimes, I try to remind you of concepts and terms in the middle of the description, but I know that can get tedious for the reader at times.  This week, I am going to do something different.  Let's see how it works!

1. How did the postal clerk or carrier know a letter was fully prepaid?  In the case of our first letter, there was a big bold "X" on the front.  This Postal History Sunday (PHS) shows you other ways payment was indicated on a letter during this time period. 

2. If you feel as if it wasn't entirely fair that our lawyer friend had to pay so much for the 2nd letter, even though the sender put SOME postage on it, let me tell you it could get much worse.  This PHS entry gives you some examples of how this system worked and exactly how bad it could get!

3. And we talk about the directional dockets on the first letter shown today.  In this case, the directional dockets were part of the address.  This PHS shows us several more examples of dockets and might help you understand their purposes a bit better.

And, what if you're someone who already knows all of the terms and concepts?  Well, a while back I started a list of the different postal conventions France had with other nations.  Maybe some of this information will help you with your own search for information?

Thank you again for joining me as I share things that I do enjoy.  I hope you have a good remainder of your day and an excellent week to come!

Sealed and Delivered - Postal History Sunday

Welcome to Postal History Sunday, featured weekly on the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog.  If you take this link, you can view every edition of Postal History Sunday, starting with this one (the most recent always shows up at the top).

The first "official" Postal History Sunday was published on the Genuine Faux Farm blog in August of 2020 as one of this farmer's efforts to reach out to others as we all felt the isolation that came with the pandemic.  My motivation was to share something I enjoy in hopes that others might be able to stimulate their own curiosity and learning - and maybe feel a bit more connection with each other in the process.  More than two years later, the basic premise remains the same.  I get to share something I enjoy (learning and postal history) with anyone who might have interest and maybe those who read these posts will have a few moments in their life where they are not dogged by the worries and cares that often drag us down.  

You do not need to fully understand anything about postal history to read these posts, and if something does not make sense to you, you may feel free to ask and no judgement will be rendered.  In fact, I do enjoy getting questions - they might actually lead to a new Postal History Sunday (assuming I can find a suitable answer!).

That's enough preamble, so let's just get down to business, shall we?

How did people send money in the mail?

The item above is what is known as an "insured letter" or, as I originally referenced it in an earlier verson of this post - "money letter" (see the end-note for more on this).  I suspect every one of you can take a wild guess what that might mean based only on these labels.  This particular envelope was sent in 1884 in Germany from Volkmarsdorf (suburb of Leipzig) to Eilenburg (about 23 km to the northeast) and it carried cash from one person to another.  

This letter appears to have been sent on August 17 and received the next day at its destination.  The rectangular postmark that appears three times on the front reads "Volkmarsdorf (biz Leipzig) 17 8 84 * 6-7."  Remember, placing the day before the month is a common practice in Europe. 

Transport yourself back in time when there were no computers.  It was not common for everyone to have bank accounts with checkbooks.  The communications service available to everyone was the postal service and, for that matter, the postal service was the primary shipper for small items.

What if you wanted to pay someone a chunk of money for a service rendered and they weren't next door?  How would you do it?  Well, use the postal service!  Most postal services in the 1800s had procedures and fees developed (and well tested) for sending cash in the mail.  These processes might differ somewhat from country to country, but there was was one constant - if you wanted any insurance to protect against loss, then you had to pay more in postage.  And, if you wanted that protection, there had to be a system that tracked how much was in the envelope!

This piece clearly shows some of the processes to track and protect the enclosed money if you know where to look.  So, let's take the nickel tour and learn a bit about it!

At the top of the envelope (on the front) the amount of money enclosed is written (5762 marks and 20 pfennige).  Under that, the amount is written out in words (funf tausend, etc...)  This serves as a way to confirm to the recipient how much was reported to be in the envelope.  The postal service also maintained separate records if they were providing some form of coverage for the event of a loss. 

The words "Inliegend mark" is roughly translated as "marks included."  For those who might be curious, a mark would be most similar to the US dollar, with 100 pfennig making up a mark.  According currency tables provided by R.L. Bidwell*, one dollar would have been equivalent to 4 marks and 19 pfennig in the 1880s. So, this letter held roughly the equivalent of $1375 at the point it went through the mail.

That's not an insignificant amount to just stuff in an envelope and expect to have it be there once it arrived at Eilenburg.  

*R.L. Bidwell, Currency Conversion Tables: A Hundred Years of Change (London: Rex Collings, 1970), 22-24.

Calculating the postage for an insured letter

There are two 50 pfennig stamps and one 20 pfennig postage stamp on this item, paying 1 mark 20 pfennig in postage.  You can see the postal clerk's calculated amount in red on the envelope in the image above.  They covered some of that number with the 20 pfennig stamp.  And, before you ask, I am not certain what the number "285" is all about!  It is likely that this was some sort of tracking or ledger number.  But, it had nothing to do with the postage calculation.

The 20 stamp pfennig paid for the wertbriefe letter postage (insured letter postage).  The rest paid for insurance in case the contents were lost.  For each whole or partial 300 marks in value, 5 pfennig in postage was required (minimum 10 pfennig).  This required 20 x 5 pfennig in postage for that insurance.  These rates were established on January 1, 1874.

Securing the valuables

The postal service was certainly going to be motivated to make sure that these valuable letters got to where they were going because they did not want to pay for lost, insured letters.  In addition to whatever tracking they used, there are two security measures visible on this envelope.  The first is on the back.

It was common to find these envelopes sealed multiple times in wax (usually red or black).   If all went well, the recipient should find that none of the wax seals had been broken prior to delivery and the amount written on the outside of the envelope would match the amount of money inside. 

Wax seals were often impressed with a design that was in the possession of the sender.  In this case, we have a simple design with initials.  Unfortunately, that will not be enough for us to track down who might have sent this money letter, but sometimes the design is sufficient to give us clues if we are motivated to track them down - which I am not this time around.

An additional security measure has to do with a recording of the weight of the sealed envelope by the postal clerk who received the letter for mailing.  If you look closely, you will see 59,2 gr / E.B.  I am not certain, but I believe E.B. references the postal clerk at the origination post office in Volkmarsdorf.  The numbers, on the other hand, simply alert the receiving post office that the weight of the envelope at the time of mailing was 59.2 grams.  If the letter weighed the same at the destination post office, all should be well.

Another insured letter from Hungary to Italy

And, here is another insured letter sent from Pest (Budapest), Hungary to Florence, Italy in 1872.  The mailing date was January 25, but there is no marking to indicate when it was received in Florence that I can see.

So, you may be wondering - did the postal clerk SEE the amount put in the envelope?  It sure seems like it would be easy to claim one amount, put in less, and then blame the postal service for losing some of the money.  It turns out that this cover answers that question.  The postal clerk did NOT always visually verify the contents - that's one of the reasons why the weight of the envelope was recorded.  But, this cover even included a notice that the clerk did not actually see the contents at the point of mailing.

There is a boxed handstamp at the top left on this envelope that says : ALLITOLAG.  This essentially was intended to say that the envelope allegedly held the amount written at top right, but the postal clerk did NOT verify the amount prior to sealing.  This lets the postal service off the hook if the amount inside the intact envelope differs from the amount written on the outside.  As long as the seals remained unbroken and weight remained the same, the postal clerks could argue that the item never did have the claimed amount.  It's kind of like the postmaster saying, "Hey.  We delivered it safe and sound.  Take it up with the sender if the amount inside isn't correct!"

The same parts that were found in our first insured letter can be found here as well.  They just aren't as neat looking and are a little bit harder to detect.  Shown above is the declaration of value with the word "Imliegend" written by hand rather than preprinted.  And, instead of giving a total value, this one tells us exactly how many of each denomination currency was included:

• 3 notes of 5 forint = 15
• 2 notes of 1 forint = 2
• Sum total forint 17

So, there were five pieces of paper money totalling 17 forint in Hungarian currency in this letter as claimed by the sender.  The postal clerk did NOT see this money, but they DID weigh the letter at 8/10 of a loth (about 14 grams).

So, are you keeping up?  All of sudden we're not talking about marks, pfennige, and grams.  Now we've got forint and loth!  Are you beginning to get a better understanding why so many in Europe were intent on moving to the decimal system and the Euro?  

The additional marking in a rectangle reads "Berment," which indicates that all of the required postage was paid.  However, the postage was actually paid in two parts this time.  For our first letter, postage stamps paid for everything.  For this letter, some of the letter was paid in cash and some was paid in postage stamps.

The amount of postage required similar calculations for this letter too. Let me summarize it for you here:

Paid in cash: 25 kreuzer
    15 kreuzer -  postage to Italy cost 15 kreuzer per loth in weight
    10 kreuzer - postage to insure the contents at a cost of 10 kreuzer per 40 forints in value

the amount paid in cash

Paid by postage stamps: 10 kreuzer
    10 kreuzer - flat rate to register mail

the registration fee was paid with a stamp

In the Austro/Hungarian empire, postage for registration was required to be placed on the back of an envelope.  The regular postage, if it were paid with stamps, would have been placed on the front.  But, since it was paid in cash, the amount was written on the front of the envelope.

Oh look!  It is also sealed with wax!  But, for good measure, the postage stamp was also placed across one of the locations where the envelope was sealed together.  Using the postage on a back of an envelope to help seal the item was an additional measure to protect against someone opening the item before it got to its destination. 

And there is a bit more design for this wax seal.  I have not taken any time to see if I can identify who might have used this design, but this one seems like it could be a bit more possible to figure out.

Not insured, but still sealed up

Not every item was sent in an envelope and not every item was opened as neatly as the prior two!  The letter shown above is known as a folded letter.  The person took a sheet (or two) of paper and folded them over themselves until they were a reasonable size.  They then used wax AND a postage stamp to seal it shut for mailing.

This item likely did not carry money or other loose items because it seems like a single was seal and a postage stamp might not be enough to keep stray items from getting away.  But, the paper content was apparently important enough that the sender wanted the postal service to add some extra tracking to this item's progress.

Someone used a sharp object to open  the letter, neatly cutting the stamp into two pieces.  The wax seal, on the other hand, was cut, but the paper tore, taking some of the seal with it.

Here is the front of this item (from Austria in the 1860s).  It also has a postage stamp.  This stamp paid the letter postage.  The one on the back, that was cut into two?  That one paid for the registration fees.  Once again, Austria's postal system required that the stamp for registration be on the reverse and the stamp to pay the regular mailing postage was supposed to be on the front. 

This letter is unlike the first two because there is no declared value and there is no insurance being purchased to cover that value.  Maybe we'll do a Postal History Sunday that focuses on registered mail in the future?

Bonus Material - Fahrpost

My German postal historian friends let me know that our second item was carried by something they call the "Fahrpost," which translates loosely to "driving post."  By the time, we get to 1872 most letter mail was carried by train if it had to travel any distance (including between nations) in Europe.  Letter mail was typically given priority treatment to facilitate speed of delivery.  After all, first class letter mail was typically comprised of light items and didn't require a lot of extra tracking.

On the other hand, parcels and letters with value (such as letters holding cash) were typically carried by the fahrpost.  These items traveled via horse and carriage from point A to point B, which certainly required more time.  This is about the extent of my knowledge in this area, but there appears to be a book (in German) that might provide sufficient information for those who find this interesting! 

Kainbacher, Paul, Handbuch der Brief- und Fahrpost in Österreich-Ungarn 1588-1918, published in 2000.

My thanks to Ralph and Martin on the German discussion board who were kind enough to help me figure out the second item in this post!  For those of you who are not familiar with postal history, it might surprise you that there are persons, worldwide, who enjoy this hobby and who participate in organizations and online groups, sharing knowledge with each other.  If it were not for the willingness of others to share their knowledge online via these groups, I would not have thought to write Postal History Sunday posts for others to enjoy.

And to all of you who opted to join me for today's Postal History Sunday, thank you!  I appreciate your support and hope that you learned something new today.  Have a great remainder of your day and a good week to come.

Endnote

David H was kind enough to point out to me that the term "money letter" might imply a completely different system. 

As David pointed out: 

... it is going to cause confusion with the money letter systems in use in UK (1792-1839) and Canada & Maritimes (1825-50s), which are actually different (in that the latter was restricted to those containing cash or negotiables and no insurance was available).

David is another of those people in the world who know more about this subject than I and I do appreciate additional input so I get them right!  For the purposes of the first two letters I show in this post, a more generic term that would be entirely correct would be "insured letters" or "letters of value."  Or, I could simply stick with the German philatelic term "wertbriefe." 

As David later confirmed, it was not as if I was entirely incorrect either.  But I was not entirely correct, which means I got to learn something new.

And that, my friends, makes it a good day.