US Scott #10 On Cover?

Thanks rohumpy,
my assumption always is, that in the days of the cover
the greater percentage of mail would be of a professional nature,
I am not so sure the common people could afford such luxuries.
It is surprising the success rate of Google searching family names.
Your cover, at least the paper, seemed of high quality.

Deciphering the "answered" jotting, would be a further clue
that it resided in an office of some sort.

I think mailing a letter in the nineteenth century was probably a memorable event for the ordinary person. I think it sort of compares to making a long distance phone call when I was a youngster. Then (the 50's) you did not just casually pick up the phone and call long distance. The cost was high and you really had to want to talk to a person about something important. (Today, of course, we grab the phone and call whoever, no matter where they are.)

I think mail in the early days of stamps may have been of the same category.

Interesting how today we may get putout because we haven't heard a response to email within a few days....

I'm finding the lots of correspondence, even between family members often annotated "answered"...even to jotting a date. There's a formal acknowledgement that the last letter they received was in ...Oct... and it's taken until ...Dec... to write back and they're sorry for concern it may have caused.

It wasn't that the person writing initially wasn't important, it was just life getting in the way, and a formal recognition of the importance of that person which is kinda nice.

Pertains to the Aug 6,1851 cover. The cancel is called the New York SQUARE GRID and is another in the plus column for it being a 10.

What's a "10" please, banetr?


...Oops, just noticed it was a scott10

Thanks banetr, Another bit of info to file away. Now I have a name for the cancellation.