Prephilatelic Covers - Any Interest? Show - Tell - Ask - Explain!

"Old letter for sale" was the advert for this cover. The nice Bishop mark of 28th January and the date the letter was written attracted me...





Addressed to John Hutton Esq., At Marske, near Richmond in Yorkshire



Signed... Your Most Humble Servant, Darill Shorte, Wadhurst. 24 January 1724

1724 - old? I would call that pre-historic
Really a nice catch

Blaamand: As Napoleon conquered the territories they were integrated into the same postal tarif scheme.Holland,Belgium,Suisse,Germany,Savoy,Italy,Spain;what ever part of these countries under French military control; adopted the tarif scale as did the ''homeland''.The lists below (first one)show all the dates and things.It's a are very heavy web site,and you will be busy for years...

http://marcophilie-yonne.pagesperso...lie89_2.html

http://e.boonafoux-amvd.chez-alice....atalogue.pdf

http://marcophilie.org/index.html

Don't forget to count in decimes!

Ha ha, cool. Clever to have a uniform standardized system in the entire empire. Sounds like the most normal thing for us today, but back then standardization was an unfamiliar concept to most - thousands and thousands of different units for measure were in use. So it was not as easy as it sounds to define the weight of letters in prephilatelic time. So you French did a few smart moves - among them your drive for standardization. The world owes the standard SI system to France (except that US don't want to be part of it, but we shouldn't go into that ...) Today most agrees that 10 gram is 10 gram, and a kilometer is - well - not just a fraction of a mile... What kind of mile, by the way...

btw - I am already a long-time fan of the marcophilie site

Reviewing your 1842 cover, Bouches-du-Rhône was the department (12)appearing on the post mark and this did include the region of the Côte d'Azur and Nice, even if Nice was (Nizza)part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia at the time. This letter apparently went from Marseille to Nizza via Department (12) according to the reference-link stated in my 1st post. This famous River did end near Marseille, thus being named in english Mouth of the Rhone and explains the name of the Department in question. History can be complicated at times incl. Nice history ! Still searching for the the 12 and its meaning....
René

I've come across a few stampless/prephilatelic British covers recently.

Put me in the group that has never heard the term prephilatelic. To me it implies that any cover after the point when it is no longer considered prephilatelic is contrived. To me anyways there are 2 types of covers with stamps, commercial and philatelic. A philatelic cover is one that is stamped and mailed through the system with the sole purpose of creating a collectible piece. All first flight and first day covers are philatelic by definition.

Anyways, here's one from 1817. Rockaway New jersey to New Haven Vermont











Here is one I believe that arrived in New York, was forwared to the wrong New Haven (CT), the forwarded to New Haven Vermont

Préphilatélie: étude des marques postales antérieures à l'apparition du timbre

English translation of Prephilatelia: study of postal works prior to the arrival of the stamp

René

BTW- nice covers stallzer !

Well I've never heard the term either, but nice premise for a thread.
I'm a big fan of stampless covers and folded letters, especially focusing on Niagara area material. What is great about these items is their uniqueness and often the stories that come with them.
But here are a couple of my favourite non Canadian stampless.

Great Britain. London to Edinborough 1764. Bishops mark on the back.



And American 1811 postmarked in Norfolk VA to New York, but actually originating in Coppet Switzerland the previous year.



See the interesting story about this one here...

https://goscf.com/t/46428

Here is on from the Netherlands from around the 1830's. Kampen to The Hague.

To whom it concerns:

I have the book 300 years of postmarks 1570-1870 from the Netherlands(more or less including Belgium and Luxemburg).

It is more a list of what is know and not a lot of background information. But it might help you on your way. So just ask I will have a look.

Blaamand: This cover show a good example of a 15.

Wow folks - lots of inspiring prephil covers - thank you all for sharing! Keep them coming

@Battlestamp - beautiful display! The 6th cover in your group has a cancel that seems to me to say 'Packet' - if so carried by a packet boat across the sea, so maritime mail. As a sailor myself, those are my favorites. There is also a insript at top left - 'Africa' - maybe the name of the packet boat?

@Stalltzer - ha ha, that awesome prephil cover of yours is definitely not in the category philatelic

@renden - thank you for enlightening us with the definition of 'prephilatelic - spot on

@Johan - nice cover and script! Thank you for offering your guidance on any Benelux stuff - would you mind to tell me something about this:


Picked it up the other day, notyet received. Postmarked 'Leyden' (Netherland) - and tax '6 3/4' - destination - Bonn (?). Nothing exciting on the reverse beside a wax seal. The seller didn't give a date/year, but I hope to find that on the letter itself when I receive it. Can you say anything about that 'Leyden' postmark - time of usage etc?

Hello Blaamand.

Name cancel used in the Northern Part of the Netherlands generally 1815-1830 although 1813 is possible.

Leyden is known in 5 different sizes. Rood means red.

@Johan - thank you, perfect!
btw - I am curious about the 'W' scrift you mentioned yesterday (when recipient did not want to pay and mail was returned to sender) Can you please share an example of how those 'W' looks like? Would be interesting.

Hello Blaamand,

I am pretty sure that I was wrong concerning the W situation, this is quite simply a 10.(Being wrong is not a bad thing, but only when you recognize it,admit it and learn from it)

The marks used to indicate a refused letter is something that I have to look into a bit further. As soon as I know something I will post.

Johan.

To me the term prephilatelic does not sound right. Philatelic or philately is not defined as 'stamps'. Philately is the study of stamps AND postal history AND other related items. You can be a philatelist and not collect stamps at all.

So saying prephilatelic is like saying 'before any postal history' to my American ear.

Great thread, hopefully some folks don't overlook it if they searching for stampless covers threads.

Don