114 Steam Loco On Piece

cant read the first via destination,starting to bug me,anyone?

I read via Cairo and Chicago. Cairo is in South Illinois.

Peter

maybe it's Cairo Egypt and there was a 90¢ Lincoln #122 on there with that! It could have been another "Ice-House cover"?! Who knows though. It just kills me when I see scissors taken to a nice old cover like this. The culprit should be punished...lol

i wish,thanks, thats solved that for me,10p ebay purchase came with some junk stamps

This is an interesting piece. The destination is London Ontario, Canada, and it appears to originate from Mobile, Alabama. What was the postal rate to Canada at that time? What a shame that someone cut off the other stamp ...

Very cool!

Brian

You keep dreamin' "I Love Stamps"

i didnt realise there was a stamp missing,doh,im thinking maybe a mourning cover? the black edge is part of it

The "via Cairo and Chicago" were routing instructions. Possibly by steamer to Cairo and the RPO to Chicago,

Cairo, Illinois, (border of Missouri and Kentucky.

I wonder if the postal authorities paid any attention to routing instructions. The clerk in Mobile looks at the envelope and thinks, "...the heck with that, I'm sending it via Chattanooga and Cleveland..."

The lower left seems to read "Tecumseh House" Perhaps this was a hotel where the sender was staying.

I would agree with the letter destination of Canada. The rate to Canada in 1869-1870 was 6 cents. Which makes me wonder, why would somebody remove one of the three cent stamps??

The Tecumseh House Hotel was in London, Ontario and likely where the recipient was staying. Here is a photo of the hotel from the London public library at http://images.ourontario.ca/london/69837/data

That IS curious. Perhaps it was an exceptional stamp?




I also gave thought to Russ' suggestion of it being a Steamship cover. In that case, you would have had a 10c stamp on cover as well - which would explain why someone cut it off.

Mobile, Al is a port city in the Gulf of Mexico, so it's a possibility, but I don't know how often steamships made Mobile their port of call. Does anyone here have info on Steamship port calls in the 1870s?

Interesting item isn't it, Jony78?

very,im currently off work with ligament damage to my knee,have been for a few weeks now,stamps and covers have been my saviour from me going crazy stuck inside,the amount I've learned from the site and its contributors has been great! thanks to you all :)

This was a dirt-common stamp through the 1940s. As to why one's missing, somebody merely wanted a copy for their album. They already proved the cover didn't mean anything to them, as they sliced up a mourning cover.

I'm a bit confused about the rate; if it was a steamer cover, would it have been two 3c stamps (6c total) PLUS a 10c stamp? But there's only one stamp missing, and there was no 13c denomination available at this time. Mobile was a major major port, but I would have thought a northbound railroad would result in a much faster transit to Canada.