Marianas Islands Stamps 1899

There is a lot of great information about the Spanish issues for the Marianas Islands that has been posted here (and very well put together exhibits). To better understand these issues, I am interested to also learn about the 1899 postal rates for that Spanish colony. It seems from the covers pictured here and a few others I have seen photographs of that most contain stamps with denominations totaling 10 centavos, but a few covers have stamps totaling 5 centavos, 15 centavos, 16 centavos, or 20 centavos. I have two questions: What were the rates to send letters, cards, or packages from the Spanish controlled Mariana Islands in 1899? Also, was there only mail service to Manila (that one ship) or was there also mail service within the Mariana Islands? If there was inter-Mariana Islands mail service, it would be interesting to see what the covers look like. Thanks.

Classic - For the one mail that used the Spanish Marianas overprints, the letter rate was 5c (double rate 10c). The Registry fee was 5c. The odd rates you see are most likely philatelic contrivances. I presume the circular and newspaper rates wer 2c but have never seen either uses.

I curated and mounted the Fred Mayer collection (which won a platinum as a single frame many years ago). The collection is on my website here:

http://www.rfrajola.com/SM/sm.pdf