Mourning Covers

I see where lots of people are making their own cached covers unfortunately this weekend I made a mourning cover to send notification of a friends death to another friend. I was just wondering if anyone else has any old mourning covers in their collections.

I can offer this example, from 1908



Sent from Jammu, the Winter capital of Jammu & Kashmir State to Lady Younghusband, the wife of Sir Francis Younghusband, at the British Residency in Srinagar, the Summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir. In 1904, Younghusband led the British Expedition to Tibet, which reached Lhasa, forced a treaty on Tibet, and established permanent British offices there. The British Resident represented the British government in Srinagar, and kept a watchful eye on what the Maharaja did, and also the manoeuvrings of those rascally Russians in Afghanistan and Sinkiang - Kim's Great Game.

Hi Cimarron Warrior,I've heard of letters edged in black & stamps edged in black but I have never heard of envelopes edged in black. How long have they been around? Does anyone make cards,edged in black? From what I heard USA is big on cards - even cards for when your pet has died. We are a bit behind the times,but we are slowly getting there.

Mourning Covers were especially popular in the 19th and early 20th century. Here's an example from my collection that's dated 1920:



Actually, I have seen very few mourning covers beyond that date, although some do exist, I'm sure. In fact, there are some 250 countries that have used mourning covers of one sort of another through the years.

There's even a collector's club devoted specifically to that field of cover collecting, to which they provide this explanation:




Check out this link (and the exhibits) to get an idea of how common this means of communication had been:

http://www.mscc.ms/page7.html

I'm not aware of mourning covers in use in the US today (although they can certainly be created, as Cimarron_Warrior has done). I think the tradition has more or less been discontinued since the advent of the telephone -- and more recently the internet -- being within most everyone's reach in today's society.

Mutilated Stationery:
Mourning Cover germany 1960






Contemporary Mourning Cover
France Circa 2005

Those are some nice covers. I have only one in my collection which does not have a cancel.

Lovely Redruth Cover
As a kid, I always used to call it Red Ruth
not Re Druth as it should be called (ford across a river)

A very popular place for vacationers,
popular since 1300 BC
The Phoenicians used to pop over for Cornish Tin.

Here are a couple which can be added to the collection in this thread. The more recent one, while plain in design, appears to originate with the British Royal Family.

Here is one I found in my pile "o" covers that I do not collect.

Can this still be done without someone from the Postal Service come knocking at your door because of suspicious activity?

Yes. See first post.

Well atleast so far the letter has not been returned and no one has come a knockin'. If they do I will surely let you know.....LOL

if any one has any mourning covers that they do not want to collect get a hold of me and we will see what can be worked out for them.

You can have the one I posted, e-mail me your address.