Anything Interesting About This Cover?

Hello All,

We know virtually nothing about USA stamps, not collecting them ourselves.

So we thought we would post this cover to see if there is anything interesting or unusual
about the stamps or the postmarks.

It is quite a 'busy' cover and some of the markings are very faint, particularly the Post Office non delivery marks.
We also note a sort of 'orphan' 1933 on the margin of the left hand stamp, which does not appear to be part of
either of the closest postmarks.

We would be very interested in any comments or information regarding it.

Regards.
Ron and Eunice.

The 1933 is not an orphan, it's part of the Sept 7 cancel next to it. It's a very interesting cover from the usage standpoint, a forwarded special delivery cover with postage due. The special delivery rate would have been 10 cents and the postage 3 cents, hence the one cent postage due. Not too unusual to use all 2 cent stamps to pay the rate. Not particularly valuable, but a fun cover to have for sure.

That type of cancel is called a duplex, it includes the "killer" covering the stamp.

Interesting cover, though as rev collector says, not particularly valuable.
I like how the piece of selvage (or whatever that is) on the lower right corner has been cancelled at Brooklyn's Times Plaza Station. Good to be thorough.
The return address on the back is to the Seamans Institute Church in New York.
Here's a link to tell a bit of its story...

http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/ht...sChInst.html

The building on 25 South St can be seen about a third of the way down the page. Must have been important enough to have its own post office.

I had a lengthy reply, but should ask a question first about the canceled adhesion at the lower right ...

What is the thickness, etc? Specifically, is it a full-thickness piece of selvage used to cover up writing underneath? (if so, hold it to a light and see what it says), Or is it just a partial thinned back-half of something peeled off? (going in the direction of a removed due stamp).

This is what the building is today.

https://therealdeal.com/2017/12/19/...ast-week-14/

Perhaps this was more of a (self-serving) concession by the Post Office, on the grounds that many of the folks passing thru would be English-challenged & in need of extra help getting their mailing needs met.

There were certainly enough very-small-town general stores running small post offices that the, uh, business model existed; one wonders if the NGO was paid, or did the work gratis.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

To wander far off on a tangent of the original cover ... The linked article above seems to say the businessman opened a post office (station/branch?) in his skyscraper. I would suggest this is poor writing accuracy by the author. The PO is in charge of its outlets. Building owners could not just open a post office in their skyscraper willy-nilly. True, the building owners might offer a low-rent incentive to the PO (probably through a bidding process) to tempt the PO to locate a branch/station there. But there are still applications needed to establish offices, move offices, and such based on costs, population, mail volume needs, transportation logistics, etc. New York City had over 200 Stations and Branches in the mid 1920s!

For general stores - the situation might be better characterized as co-located businesses with separate accounting which may often have employees in common. It may be picky, but it seems more accurate to say "the post office was run out of the general store", rather than the general store ran the post office. I have no definitive proof, but would contend that people were always paid, the price for space was negotiable. The compensation of postmasters and clerks is public record, and would fall under general civil service regulations. I suspect some of the "back corner of the general store" space was supplied gratis in expectation of foot traffic. End of tangent!

The post office at 25 South Street was probably a numbered contract station. There were around 250 numbered stations in New York City in the 1920 Postal Guide, but no addresses were given.

Contract Stations were authorized by the post office, but were located in business establishments (drug store, department stores, etc) and operated by store employees. They accepted mail for pick up by the post office, but did not receive mail.

They primarily sold stamps, stamped envelopes, and postal cards. Their other range of services was limited, some (but not all) were authorized to accept registered mail or sell money orders. Except for these latter two functions, they did not normally cancel mail when it was brought in - that function fell to the main post office that collected their mail.

'
"Contract station" ... thank you, mml1942.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Actually the SCI was located at 241 Water St. (the Blue Man Group School site) starting in 1991, according to the article I posted.
The 25 South St. address I mentioned as the return address on the back of the envelope was an older location vacated in 1968.

Here's a google view that shows the present day occupant of that address.

I go past here a few times a month. I will probably go past here next on Monday.

A lot of history down in that area. Federal Hall, Fraunces Tavern, The Battery, etc.

This is great to get so much feedback.
Many thanks to you all.

revcollector
The idea of the 1933 being outside the c.d.s. seems very strange to us (as we are used to the whole thing being contained within the circle)
I note it is the same with the Times Plaza cancel at the bottom right. Thanks for the break-down of the special delivery fee and postage.
This was in a box with other postage due items and as we are completely ignorant on USA stamps and postal history it got us stirred up!
Didn't expect any value but as you say a 'fun' cover. Thanks also for the link to the building which we will investigate tomorrow.
It sounds as though you do a fair bit of travelling in the area.

jamesw
The return address of Seaman's Inst. P.O. gives no indication of a church.
Again we will investigate the link tomorrow.
We note the Times Plaza is similar to the New York cancel with the 1933 outside the circle whereas the Brooklyn cancel on the reverse
has the year within the circle. So all is of interest to us. Thanks for the update on the closure of the original address and the image of the building now.

John Becker
Regarding the bottom cancel it looks as though it was either selvedge or a stamp there, nothing seems to have been written underneath and the cancel was obviously applied after the piece had been removed.


Our thanks to IkeyPikey, mmi1942 for the background information.
It was well worth our while putting this up on the board.
Regards to all
Ron and Eunice.

Times Plaza, Brooklyn. One of the major intersections of the borough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Plaza

Hi Ron and Eunice. In the U.S. these kinds of "Duplex Cancels" are extremely common during this era. The cancelling device is all one piece and it has the CDS on one side and the killer bars on the other side and the year in the middle of these two By putting the year there it made more room in the Circular Date Stamp for the day, month and time of day allowing them to be a little bigger. What you have here is one decent strike of the complete device on that first stamp on the left, then a lazy clerk just bang-bang-bang-banging away to put some black ink on the rest of the stamps and not worrying about making anything legible there - just to make those stamps unusable for someone who might want to soak them off. If you look closely you can see a little bit of a blurred 1933 portion of the dulplex cancel in some of the other strikes.

As others have said, the value of the cover is in the fun you have had with it. There is little to no commercial resale value for the cover. If you ever tire of it this would be the sort of thing you might give to a young person to encourage them to take up collecting postal history as the story is the value for this.