Unmarked Missent Cover

When I saw this cover on ebay, I clicked the BIN before anyone started bidding on it. There are no postal marking on the reverse.
While it appears to be an ordinary cover with a transit marking, it is in fact MISSENT and unmarked as such as per Post Office regulations:

Postal Laws and Regulations.
XIV. MISSENT, NIXES, AND MISDIRECTED MATTER.

(a.) Missent Matter.
406. Missent matter, that is, plainly directed matter sent in the wrong direction by the act of postal officials, should, as soon as discovered, be placed in the first mail going in the proper direction.
407. Missent matter of any class, received at any post office, must be stamped "Missent," and postmarked with the date of receipt before the same is forwarded to its proper destination.

Cloverdale is very near the northern border of Sonoma County, 32 miles south of Ukiah, Covolo is 64 miles north of Ukiah.
I have marked the towns in red on this 1904 map of Mendocino County. The small red mark just north of Cloverdale is Preston, it was then Preston Colony during the 1870-80s and became a town in 1890, complete with post office.

The Covolo postmark helps identify the year as Men 810 EKU was Nov 17 1883 and the LKU was Dec 9 1884. It does seem odd that the Covolo pm reconciled the indicia but neglected to mark the cover missent.

I think it's Covelo not Covolo. Nice item. It is quite likely that the PO might not have had a ready-made stamp to mark it missent though of course a manuscript marking would have worked just as well.

You're correct. It is also suppose to say re canceled! That I'll blame spell-checker for, Have to admit, I misspell Covelo often.
The Covelo PM compensation shows $363.90. I'm not sure what class rating that made the office, but the POD was providing the supplies. Should have had the handstamp. Also possible it was part time help that was not fully aware of the regulation.
The Ukiah PM's compensation was $1350, a much bigger office. Hard to explain how it was placed in the north bound mail bag. Especially to Mrs.E Preston, she was famous at the time! I've 3 other covers addressed to her.
By the 90's the train dropped off mail at Preston 4 times a day.


http://comstockhousehistory.blogspo...for-you.html

Hi; Mrs. Preston has a gruesome cure for you...
http://comstockhousehistory.blogspo...for-you.html

If you read all of the linked to page and follow the other link contained on that page, although her cure were somewhat gruesome, Emily Preston provided a utopian lifestyle for her followers at "Blisterville" from the mid 1870's until her death in 1909.

http://larkcamp.com/Preston/PrestonHistory.html

Also on that other page, it describes some of the counter culture that occupied the ranch thru the mid 60s, one of whom designed this familiar logo.

Every time I would try to enter the date of this cover into my files, I'd add a question marks. I was focused on the postmarks and their
known use dates, all the wile ignoring the green 3c stamped envelope that they are on.
October 1, 1883 Letter rate reduced one third. All parts of the Untied States per 1/2 oz ..... 2c
This was sent July 14 1883, and though Covelo forgot to mark the cover Missent, their CDS Men 810 now has a new EKU.