Questions About Stampless Covers

I just purchased a collection that included a bunch of stamp-less covers. It's not an area I collect and so I am looking for some basic information about them. What makes them exciting. Things to look for. etc. Here are some sample photos:











All thoughts and ideas would be very helpful

thanks

Joe

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Hi Joe
They look interesting but we would need more information.
Your post does not mention which country(s) but I think I can see a
Deal Ship Letter? in the second scan.

Perhaps it would be an idea to do some close up scans of the postal markings themselves and perhaps we can help. We would think this was very exciting because they are obviously personal - i.e. family letters as opposed to commercial or banking letters. Just the thing that interests us. We can see American addressed and English addresses, so ideal for a bit of research.

To give you some ideas on British Postal History you can check our website

-/phtoc.html

Will give you examples of postal markings.

Cheers
Eunice and Ron

Malton's quite a typical Yorskshire market town -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal...th_Yorkshire

Top scan lower item is a step frame Portsmouth ship letter going to Yorkshire. With these items if we can't see the file note on the side or the letter page showing where its from we can't id the date and origin. 2nd scan is a Deal ship letter. Under that a transatlantic from Scarborough gb to usa. Closer scans would help. Possibly all transatlantic letters which I am always looking for.

To answer your original question, some very broad generalities of better vs. not as collectible might include:

From lesser known cities and towns - better
From big cities such as London, Paris, New York, etc. - not as good
To places very far away such as being sent across oceans or other great distances - better
To places not so far away - not as good
Having extra markings both rubber stamped and handwritten - better, having many extra markings so you can track how the letter
progressed over a long distance - even better
Having not so many markings both rubber stamped and handwritten - not as good
Personal mail with interesting and legible contents such as commentary on historical people or events of the time (not just how
is your Aunt Tilly doing type idle chatter - better
Commercial mail with boring contents such as lists of items for sale or being an invoice of items bought - not as good
Letters from famous people - better
Letters to famous people - not as good as from famous people, but better than to or from ordinary people
Letters with military markings - better, especially if they include writing inside that relates to the soldier's experiences
in the war
Letters in very nice and fresh condition with no tears or other damage - better
Letters in rough condition - not as good unless there is a notation or rubber stamp mentioning it was in an accident or such,
or having slits for fumigation or damage from having been written by a soldier fighting on the front lines of a war
of the era or something where the damage is part of the postal history of the letter
There can be relatively ordinary looking stampless folded letters that have ordinary looking but rare markings - you would need
some specialist catalogs to determine those

One caveat to your statement about commercial mail:
Commercial mail where the contents are PRINTED (as opposed to handwritten) are better.

Thanks for all the info. That is exactly the kind of 101 class I needed. Here are some closeups of the cover that folks mentioned: