Fake 1828 Stampless Cover

I acquired this with a collection of covers in 2007 I am now going through. The addressee, Brigadier General Thomas Jesup served as US Quartermaster General from 1808 to 1860! So that is historically accurate. And the hand writing of the writer and the receipt annotation are different. However, the WM on the paper is Old Hampshire Bond, which was first available in 1889. So it is a forgery or a copy of the original. One wonders why someone would do that.

To preserve a family letter?

Perhaps, to provide another family member, or other interested party, with a copy.

DonSellos

The other option is that the letter is original and the information on the date of the watermark is wrong. Where did you find the watermark information?

I wish to point out the "Book 8" on the sheet. That suggests that the original letters were bound or otherwise collected in to books. If this is a copied letter, then it is referencing from where it was copied. Facsimile machines, machines which could transmit pictures, were not common, even in 1889, some 42 after the first photo image was transmitted..

As was pointed out these were the days before photocopy machines and even carbon paper. It was not uncommon for important letters to be copied by hand either at the time or at a later date to be kept in files or to go to additional people who needed one or to just preserve one's own records including when one's files are damaged at some point in the future such as by water or fire or other causes. Such copies can be in the hand of the original writer, or when the original writer is a busy person and can afford it to have a secretary do the copying. It is hard to be sure from just an internet photo, but this one does not appear to my eyes to have been written and gone through the mails in 1828 but rather appears to be a much later copy if not an outright fake.