Neat US 1939 Bank Parcel Tag With Many Perfins

I assume that the FAR precancels stand for (F)ederal (R)eserve Bank of (A)tlanta as indicated on the tag.

A nice variety of bureaus and a lone prexie. It wasn't until I saw the back side that I said "Whoa... Wallpaper!"

Nice. $29.91 in postage. "A" for Atlanta is a reasonable guess but no where did it get near there. I have never seen an item like this before. Hopefully, someone else can tell us more. Check with Ken Lawrence.

The "A" for Atlanta is perfectly correct. The tag clearly gives the origin address as the "New Orleans Branch / Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta" and it is mailed from New Orleans to New York CIty. No doubt they used the home-office perfins throughout the district.

$29.91 rates as follows:

If $5 or less indemnity, 15 cents registration, plus 992 ounces (62 pounds) first class at $03/oz.

OR

If $25 to $5.01 indemnity, 18 cents registration, plus 991 ounces (61 lbs 15 oz) first class at $.03 per ounce.

No other registration steps allows for proper first class postage of $.03 per ounce.

There is no manuscript "X" after the registration number which informally indicates a high value shipment. Thus supplemental fees arising for registered value over $1000.00 seems in appropriate here.

1st class weight limit was 1120 ounces (70 lbs).

Seems a safe bet that this was for a shipment of coins.......although one would think that the insurance would be higher in that case.

More than just currency and coin was mailed.

I understand, but what else is likely to be that heavy?

Paper, lots of paper.

Paper is not light. A ream of standard 20lb bond paper weighs five pounds. Thus twelve reams just about does it. The basic "Xerox box" of copy paper is 10 reams which is not that large.

Besides paper records, remember the FRB handled War Savings Bonds. Standard Savings Bonds were Treasury issued.

Lastly, unfit, mutilated and obsolete currency, which the FRB handled, was paper weight but had no longer a face value. Sixty pounds of defunct small bills is only 27,200 or so of them. They run about a gram per bill.

Coinage is actually easy to calculate the value of for coins which are not nickles or pennies. One pound is $20. Thus 60 pounds of dime, quarter, half dollar or pre-1979 dollar coins is $1200. An amount that should likely get the "manuscript x" after the registry number to denote high value which your tag does not have.

For fun, I will add 60 lbs of pennies is $87 and a 60 pounds of nickles, $273.

Edited for caps.

My Perfin Catalog verifies that this symbol belongs to the Federal Reserve Bank & Mint Reserve, Atlanta, GA; in use from 1926-1942

Why would the Federal Reserve Bank be sending defunct bills to Chemical Bank? Other kinds of paper or coins, sure.

H. S. Gibbons, Assistant Vice President, Chemical Bank & Trust Company to Baldwin.

My guess is stock certificates and documentation of collateral related documents. My guess is paper, as everything then was probably boxed docs.