1898 Cover To St. Petersburg Russia

My Father found this cover in a box lot he purchased. We have little/no knowledge of cover and postal history and have a few questions. We appreciate any help.
1. It looks like the cover originated in Philly, then to N.Y. then onto St. Petersburg, is this correct?
2. Do the back stamps/cancellations look correct?
3. There are what appear to be initials/notes/numbers etc. scribbled on the cover - Is this normal or correct?
4. Is this the correct postal rate?
5. And finally - Does this cover appear to be legitimate? And how do we determine a value?

Thanks for any input.

Harry

This is a registered cover from Philadelphia via New York City and on to St. Petersburg, Russia. The numbers scribbled on the front are the registration number written there by the postal clerk who accepted the letter in Philadelphia. The smaller writing in the upper left corner appears to be ans which would be short for answered. It was not uncommon for recipients of letters to note on the front of the cover that they answered the letter so later when they look at the letter again they will remember whether they answered it. The handwriting on the back appears to be markings from postal clerks along the way somewhere - as part of their responsibility for tracking a registered letter.

My guess is if you were to put this up on ebay or in a regular auction somewhere you might get as much as $5 if the right buyer were looking at that time. The stamps are inexpensive. For example the Columbian stamps (the green ones with the sailing ship - Scott Catalog number 232) go for about 50 cents if they are in nice condition (I cannot tell from your photo whether there are any condition problems), and the 8 cent Sherman - the brown one, Scott Catalog number 272 - goes for about the same in really nice used condition. One of the problems this cover has in regard to being desirable for collectors is there is no city/date cancelation on the front so when it is displayed it is hard to figure out just when it was sent. Also, the back stamps are a bit weak and other than the New York City backstamp there do not appear to be any other backstamps of intermediate points so it is hard to figure out how it went.

This cover is certainly worth more than $5, the 3 cent Columbian on cover cats $35 (and $17.50 off cover), and Russia is not all that common a destination. In addition, a 4 cent entire on oriental buff cats $40. I would expect this cover to bring at least in the $25-$35 range. It appears to be a triple weight cover, which is probably not all that common a rate as well.

$5? As Bart says, it's easily worth more than that. Heck, I'd buy it for $20 all day long just for its aesthetic properties alone.

FYI-there are two clearly readable Russian receiving marks on this cover as well, although I am not knowledgeable enough to know where they are from. I assume one is from St. Petersburg.

I can think of at least one postal history dealer who would probably charge at least $100 for this cover, based on his usual prices.

Thanks everyone for sharing your knowledge!

In terms of value I don't think my dad is going to sell the cover - rather I think he is going to try to incorporate it into his album of single stamps, probably with the Columbians. The value question came into play because we where trying to use a Scott catalogue - with so many stamps on cover + a foreign destination we really had no clue how something like this would be valued.

Harry

revenuecollector, it's funny, aesthetically I don't care for it. But,I do like it for the unique grouping of stamps. Nice cover. Great to find stuff like this, unexpected, in a box lot.

HarryG, looks like there are four glue marks on the back of the cover. It was probably mounted in an album at one time.

I don't get why someone would do it that way. Sticking it to an album page in that manner takes away the ability to see the back and causes damage.

Some also would value it highly as a triple quadruple ... The stamps have four denominations and four colors, and there are four different colors in the back stamps. As an article in one of the journals noted recently, getting a triple quintuple is pretty difficult.

I'd think that a solo first bureau use on cover to Russia (single 5c franking) would bring $20 or better on ebay. As others have said, Russia isn't a common destination.

I suspect it's a philatelic use of sorts, but still... $50+++++ item all day long. Triple rate, 4 color franking, that 4c entire isn't common, good destination, registered, plus the 3c columbians and the 1c 1st bureaus aren't singles; you've got a block of 3 and a pair so that helps..

If you put it on ebay and it broke $100 I wouldn't be remotely surprised.

Nice cover.

In the style of Maxell Smart.

Would you go for proximally surprised?



Joking aside, it is a lovely cover.

That's around about the starting rage I was thinking too was $50. +/- as-is but add some research on top of that and you will the attention of both document, cover and postal historians. Very nice cover and really busy (that's good for these classics)-I'm betting you shan't have any issues moving this cover! Please show us other ones from that box of stuff if you can? We'd really love that!

It would be nice to see the kinds of prices that are being mentioned, but I have a fair amount of experience selling on ebay and in other auctions and I would be very surprised to see this go for those kinds of prices based on my experience. Small fractions of catalog values are what I see such covers go for. Prices dealers ask for are not what things sell for if you are the one doing the selling. Also, if you were to go to that same dealer and offer a collection of this kind of material the price the dealer would pay would be, again, a small fraction of what they ask for since they are in business and must pay their salary, the salaries of any people working for them, overhead costs, taxes, advertising costs, costs to go to shows and rent a stall, achieve enough profit to grow the business, etc. etc. Still, I would think the only test would be to put it up for auction with a 99 cent starting bid and see where it goes.

The cover is probably philatelic and I would "discount" a bit on that basis (normally you don't see Columbians used in 1898) but Russia is indeed a scarce destination. I have no problem viewing this as a $50 cover and I agree that in the hands of many postal history dealers this is a $100 retail item.

The Scott catalog really can't be used to value most covers. The catalog can't (or at least doesn't) address rates, destinations, postmarks, and the like. Even when you are dealing with a basic use the catalog values don't tend to have much of a correlation with reality.