Show Us Your Oldest Stamped Or Stampless Cover.

Re cut corner - That is how I recieved it about 50 years ago when I first started collecting.

Actually, there was (is) one on a UK auction that I think has gone off that was a stampless UK letter from 1464 or there abouts. The letter has contents and it is dated from the letter. They were asking a staring price of 180 Pounds or something, so needless to say I wasn't jumping in to get it. Would have been nice however..

The covers that are showing up on this thread are really interesting.
To requote myself "Keep them coming".

My oldest cover I've shown before. A small cover sent from Orillia to Collingwood in 1880. It is stamped on the back in Barrie and Collingwood.



The other day our friend Seahorse posted this interesting image on the original thread showing this cover.




Was our lady sending her fiance a message with the inverted stamp?

I've been mounting my cover collection (consisting mostly of mid 20th century) recently in an album, so have renewed interest in this subject. Tomorrow night is stamp club. I think I'll be visiting the man who always has a box full of covers for sale! Time to expand.

Nice material everyone and quite interesting.

Regarding jamesw's postcard with the upside-down stamps, I believe that there is a website, or info in my files, stating a reference to a 'stamp language' by the way they were applied to stamps or covers. Once I find it, I'll post it here.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Here are a few more covers to look at.









Close up of the Canadian cancel

Here is a nice cover and I am showing the front and back.

A lot of these covers I got some years ago. I am now putting the vast majority of my covers in to new albums with write-ups etc. I have done this for my Muskoka covers, Canadian military etc etc.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Seahorse, and subsequently I, got the postcard from

http://16sparrows.typepad.com/lette...-stamps.html

Thanks Seahorse.

Here are a couple of very early Canadian illustrated covers.
Back about 1850, James Valentine of Dundee, Scotland published a number of designs for propaganda covers. A year or so later, US publishers added reference to the Maine Temperance Act to these designs and published them in the US. A couple of years after that, the design was copied (poorly) and published in Canada. Here are two examples - one from the "pence" period and one from the "cents" period.
Enjoy.
Chip

This one is not quite as early, but points our the interesting way that mail was routed in the early days:




Description:
New Westminster, via Victoria and San Francisco, to Canada West.September 20, 1863.
Rose 2½d Victoria pays local postage.
New Westminster, BC numeral "1" cancellation.
US postage fees paid in cash as indicated by black oval "PAID" and red "15."
US stamps affixed in Victoria over GPOBC datestamp.
Cancelled in transit in San Francisco October 12, 1863.
Dunnville / November 7, 1863 datestamp on verso.

tracing of the GPO datestamp that is under the US stamps:

Very nice chipg

Covers with mixed frankimgs are always interesting. It is also interesting to note the British Columbia stamp on cover too which are hard to get by themselves.

It is interesting to see how the added postage was applied 'en-route' to get it to its' destination.

Great stuff

Chimo

Bujutsu

Really nice covers guys....keep coming.

Bujutsu...I especially like stampless covers with a seal on them...Maybe no more valuable, but really neat.

Just wondering if more value is added to a cover if there is an original letter/bill/etc. still in the envelope...???

Stunning cover Chip, can't be many like that.

Here is my oldest Canadian Cover, 1899



Oldest Stampless from the US, 1817



Oldest Stamped US cover, 1861 (I think )

Nice covers stallzer...That one from Welland (near Niagara Falls) is pretty sweet.

Could that be Unitrade #1 or Unitrade #4
date : 1851/52

Note : it is not #15 from wich the perf were cutted

stallzer:
Your cover is more likely pre-1857. Perforated stamps were introduced then and in a place like Philadelphia, they would not likely have been using imperforates much beyond the introductory date. If you can plate the 1c stamps, you could perhaps narrow the likely date down further (1851-57).
C.
PS - 3c letter rate plus 1c carrier fee for carriage to the post office.