Covers

30
Dec
2019

The Shipwreck of SS Dakota

A popular category of philatelic study is disaster mail. Mail interrupted or damaged by some form of a disaster such as a flood, fire, ship or plane wrecks, war, etc. Shown below is an envelope recovered from the shipwreck of the S.S. Dakota, a passenger and cargo steamship that traveled the Pacific. The Dakota wrecked when she struck a reef off the coast of Japan near Yokohama on March 3, 1907. The ship was close enough to shore to avoid any deaths, and the passengers and cargo, including mail, were evacuated before she sunk.

Broadside of the S.S. Dakota.

Post card of a photo about one hour after the accident.

Ninty-four shipwrecked passengers were transported to a nearby lighthouse and hamlets in a sparsely populated area. Two days later, the steamer Hakuai Maru arrived to carry the passengers and ten bags of mail to Yokohama. The surviving mail was severely water damaged. The cover shown below was sent from Montana to a U.S. Army Transport ship (USAT Logan) stationed in Nagasaki, Japan and was franked with five 2¢ Washington stamps, as evident from the ghostly red stain on the right side. A Feb 10, 1907, Missoula & Hamilton R.P.O postmark would have tied the ten-cents of postage paying twice the UPU letter rate for up to one ounce.

Hamilton, Montana advertising cover damaged in the wreck of S.S. Dakota.

Mail aboard the wrecked ship was salvaged and subsequently delivered. Note the makeshift postal label in Japanese and English applied to the top of the cover explaining “Soaked and damaged in the wreck of Dakota. — Tokio (sic) Post Office”

Tokio Post Office manuscript label explaining the damage.

The damaged cover was also resealed with Japanese official seal stamps.

The reverse of the cover with Japanese official seals.

This is one of my favorite pieces in my collection. Please share any other info about the S.S. Dakota, or other disaster covers or cards.

More info on the wreck of S.S. Dakota can be found at Wikipedia and WreckSite.eu.

Posted by Geoff in Covers, Destinations, 0 comments
18
Aug
2019

Earliest Documented Use (EDU) 10-cents Webster

I recently discovered a cover with the earliest documented use (EDU) of the 10-cents Webster stamp (Scott #307) on eBay. This is the second cover I found sent on March 7, 1903.  

I previously found a remarkable registered cover to Hungary and had it certified by the American Philatelic Society (APS) as the new EDU, soundly besting the previous date by five days. Unfortunately, I had wrongly assumed the APS expertising department sent discoveries to the Scott Catalog editors. The wrong EDU date has remained in the catalog for the past eight years. The editors have now been contacted about both covers, and the earlier date should be reflected in the 2020 catalog.

Registered large envelope from Pittsburg, Pa. to Hungary by way of New York. Franked with a total of 48¢ paying the 8¢ registry fee plus eight times the UPU letter rate for less than four-ounces. The franking shows a mixed use of both 1st and 2nd Bureau stamps. Most 2nd Bureau stamp EDUs occur in early 1903.

 

The 10¢ Webster stamp paid the 8¢ registry fee plus 2¢ U.S./Canada treaty rate. The cover traveled from Springfield to Boston to Buffalo to Niagra Falls and finally St Catharines, Ontario in two days.

Posted by Geoff, 0 comments
18
Nov
2018

New international destinations

I picked up a few new international destinations and have added them to the world map.  If the map does not load for you, please send me a message including details on which platform and browser you are using.

Two 5c Lincoln stamps pay twice the UPU letter rate to the Gold Coast of West Africa (modern-day Ghana).

 

Posted by Geoff in Covers, Destinations, 0 comments
12
Nov
2018

Another $2 and $5 piece found, updated censuses

About two months after cataloging and writing about a new $2 and $5 piece in the censuses, another piece surfaced on eBay.

A small piece from a blue package franked with $1, $2, and $5 Second bureau stamps as well as two Washington-Franklin 15-cents stamps probably Scott 340.  A third 15-cent stamp is missing from the bottom right corner.  Three New York registry hand stamps tie all of the stamps to the piece.

312-15 and 313-14

This piece adds to both censuses and is designated 312-15 (for the $2 Madison stamp) and 313-14 (for the $5 Marshall stamp), the 15th and 14th items in each count.

Here are all three similar pieces.

Posted by Geoff in Covers, News, 0 comments
07
Oct
2018

1906 Pago Pago, American Samoa to England

Pago Pago, American Samoa to London, England.

A lovely small envelope franked with a 1st Bureau 1-cent stamp and a pair of 2nd Bureau 2-cents Washington Flag stamps to make up the UPU letter rate for a 1/2 ounce.  Sent from the U.S. Possession, American Samoa in 1906 to London, England.  By 1906 newer versions of the 1¢ and 2¢ stamps had been issued, the 2nd Bureau 1¢ and 2¢ shield stamps were available in 1903 in the States’ as well as American Samoa.

 

Posted by Geoff in Covers, Destinations, U.S. Possessions, 0 comments
27
Jul
2018

Philatelic $5 Cover

I’ve maintained a census of the 2nd Bureau $2 and $5 stamps for several years now.  There are only 13 15 pieces or covers (as of March 2019) with the five dollar Marshall stamp (Scott 313), and many of the items were created by contemporary philatelists.  Shown below is the only solo franked $5 cover in the census, item 313-12.

Five dollar Marshall stamp on cover.

Sent from Klotzville, Lousiana on the 17th of January, 1909 to a P.O. box in New Orleans.  The $5 franking hugely overpaid the 2-cent first-class domestic letter rate to a man named N. W. Taussig.  Mr. Noah William Taussig and his brother, Issac, were prominent businessmen in New York and New Orleans sugar industries where Noah was the board chairmen of the American Molasses Company.  Noah most likely created and sent this cover from a sugar factory in Klotzville to himself.  The handwriting on the cover matches his 1922 passport application (available on ancestry.com).

Constance and Noah Taussig’s passport photo (circa 1922).

Mr. Taussig’s name may be familiar to airmail collectors as the creator of the “Taussig” first flight cover that is on display at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.  Taussig created the cover that bears President Woodrow Wilson’s autograph and was carried on the historic May 18, 1918, flight from Washington, D.C. to New York City.  The prized cover was sold to Mr. Taussig for $1000 at auction to benefit the American Red Cross.

Inaugural airmail flight envelope created and later purchased by N. Taussig.

June 14, 1918, newspaper clipping of autographed cover purchase.

These are the only two philatelic “Taussig” covers known to me.  Know of any others?

Posted by Geoff in Covers, 0 comments