Notice To Army Examiner: Stamps Used Are Not A Code

Has anyone seen this type of notice on a cover before? Was secret information transmitted during WWII using stamps? Inquiring minds want to know

Decoded: Let's party in Nürnberg!

Nice item, Jenny!

I've never seen that, uh, user endorsement, but I can understand the sender's concern that the examiner might wonder:

Q/ Why would this soldier be sending home the envelopes from the mail he receives from home?

However, I think that Mr Smith over-thought this a bit, and should have skipped the 'not a code' bit.

He could have written: "Yeah, sure, my kid is off to war, but I'm still collecting stamps!"

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

In World War II the Dutch underground sometimes wrote messages under the stamps on a letter. Maybe that is what the sender was referring to?

Peter

V-Mail was touted for its security against microdots under stamps, a method used by the Abwehr (German military intelligence) in WW II. So whether that, or the messages under stamps by the Dutch that Peter mentions, there were obviously concerns about mail being used to communicate secret messages one way or another

Basil

Strange, to say the least, but perhaps the sender had difficulties in the past.

Has anyone noticed that the user endorsement seems to be pasted (?) under the front of the cover? That is, the top left of the envelope's front is missing.

It looks pasted on to me. It has some transparency, and the red and blue bars on the top edge of the envelope show through.

I wonder if he just sent an empty envelope (for the stamps) and didn't want it opened and labeled with a Censor sticker. Interesting, nonetheless.

KGB, looks to me like it is pasted over the cover and that nothing has been cut from the cover (I can see the red/blue airmail border all the way to the left, though just barely at the far left). He typed it on a sheet of paper, cut it out, and pasted it like a label at the upper left corner before he mailed it (notice that the cancellation marks extend over the right of the label).

Edit: the red and border at the far top left may be obscured if you are looking at the image with the dotted line around it. Click on it, and you'll see the image without the dotted line, and you can then see the red and blue border under the label all the way to the left.

Jenny,
Hey, neat cover. I think you ought to soak that label off there and see if there is anything underneath!

Just kidding of course.
Don

I think you're all correct about the message being pasted on top. I was focused on the bottom edge which looks so much different than the top. (To me at least!)

The note is glued to the front of the cover (and tied beautifully ) How interesting that messages were written under stamps!

I wonder if he just sent an empty envelope (for the stamps) and didn't want it opened and labeled with a Censor sticker.

This would be by far the most logical explanation... if you re-read the typewritten message it says "not FOR a code" and he might have meant the censors mark and code number etc. I cannot think of any spy putting "no code here...move on, nothing to see" ... or "I promise I'm no spy so don't look under the stamps"

But just think what a great cover it would be for a spy. Sending secrets under stamps in the guise of a stamp collector requesting the stamps not be disturbed

What shall we make of the fact that APO 834 was in the Canal Zone, not in Europe? It would be doubly devious if our spy sent it there as a bit of misdirection, with secrets to then be passed on to the Abwehr in Germany. Lots of U-boats prowled the Caribbean you know (though not so much by 1943), once handed off to an intrepid German spy, the recipient could have been picked up by a U-boat and the secrets then radioed to the Abwehr.

Amazing how much can be read into a postal cover, right?

I don't know what secrets Mr. Smith would have to share. Perhaps the number of cans of Spam being produced at the local Hormel Plant?