Charlottesville VA Stampless Cover

This cover obviously has an extremely nice strike, can anyone tell me anything else about it?



Thanks,

Ken

I can't tell you much about that cover but if I saw that in a dealer's box I would definitely buy it. It would make a nice addition to my stampless collection. Nice!
That reminds me I have some stampless covers I picked up at StampShow that I need to scan and post.

Vince

The most I can say is it should be between 1845 and 1851 since 5 cents was the rate for a half ounce mailed less than 3,000 miles from July, 1845 to September, 1852. From July 1845 until 1848 5 cents was both the prepaid and the collect rate, and after then until 1852 the prepaid rate was 3 cents and the collect rate was still 5 cents. Charlottesville was an established town in Virginia at that time so it is not an especially rare cancellation but it is a very nicely struck one and the ink has not faded much so it is a really nice example.

It's almost certainly from the 1851-55 period since it's unpaid and on an envelope (much more common in the 1851 period than the 1845 period). Nice example.

Albemarle is the county that surrounds Charlottesville, and I think, Earlysville as well.

I got the cover in a "Confederate" stampless cover lot, but my catalogs are in Florida and I am in NY right now. The others in the lot look OK but this one stood out.

It is absolutely not confederate use. There was no provision for unpaid letter mail in the Confederate postal system.

Good point, here is another cover from that lot;

Nice stampless covers - I was stationed at Norfolk while in the US Navy.

Regards,
Stampalotapus