Recent Paquebot Mail

Last December I had the opportunity to send some Paquebot mail. I traveled on board the catamaran MV Jean de La Valette which operates daily Malta-Sicily trips, and the vessel has a letterbox which allows for paquebot mail. The letterbox was installed by MaltaPost in 2011.

Here's a paquebot cover from the vessel. It's postmarked 7 January 2019:



Interestingly, the postmark used to cancel the stamp is very old - it has been used since around 1936! This must be one of the oldest postmarks still in use anywhere in the world:



Have any members been able to send/acquire recent paquebot mail? Do you know about what are the procedures in different countries?

Also, if anyone has any examples of Malta paquebot mail (both old and new) please post them here. :)

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

I went on a Carnival cruise a few years ago and carried covers bearing postage for all the island stops we made - intending to have them cancelled on board - then carried by paquebot - or at minimum stamped at the island port (asuming the ship would drop mail everywhere it landed). The Carnival purser had no idea what I was talking about. Said all mail posted on board is carried back to Miami and mailed. Dreadful.

Interesting thread and thank you for posting it.

About 7 or 8 years ago, our neighbours took a cruise and they asked me if I wanted any stamps from the destinations they were going to. Instead of stamps, I asked them if they would send either a postcard or cover stamped on board the ship. When they tried to have this done, they were told that they no longer do this any more.

Because of the posting here, I am wondering now if that only applies to the major lines and smaller ones still continue??

Happy collecting.

Chimo

Bujutsu

I am actually not 100% sure what the procedure in Malta actually is regarding paquebot. In this case there's an actual letterbox on board the vessel - I don't know if mail from other vessels is also accepted and sent as paquebot.

MaltaPost began the paquebot service on board the MV Jean de La Valette on 7 November 2011. The announcement on their website reads:


Source: https://www.maltapost.com/news-details?id=94

Here is a pic of the letterbox:


This notice is affixed to the front of the letterbox:




On the sides of the letterbox there are two identical notices which read:




I believe the "MAILED ON BOARD..." marking is applied on board the vessel (or by the company owning the vessel). The "<PAQUEBOT>" marking and the "PAQUEBOT/MALTA" cancel are applied by MaltaPost on Malta after the mail is handed over to them. Mail is not collected very frequently. I posted mine on 22 December and they were postmarked on 7 January.

To be honest, I don't know why the service was put into practice. Having a paquebot service on board a ferry which makes daily trips is quite unnecessary in my opinion - it wouldn't have made much sense a hundred years ago, let alone in 2019. It's not philatelic either - I don't know of any way to send covers from there, except to physically post them at the letterbox on board.

The company operating the Jean de La Valette, Virtu Ferries, had other catamarans before this one entered service in 2010. I don't know if they had similar arrangements with a letterbox on board - I haven't seen any press releases or anything and I've never seen any covers. Recently a new catamaran (the MV Saint John Paul II) was launched and it is supposed to enter service later this year - it would be interesting to see if a letterbox is installed on this one too.

In this link the card was stamped paquebot.Apparently a Malta stamp was also applied too the
back and cancelled.. I think these are just philatelic souvenirs

http://envelopmer.blogspot.com/2017...archive.html