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.