Pictures Cover From San Francisco To Hannover (German State) I Think April 1866,

with a N York Br Pkt transit stamp, may 2?

any thought?? I cant figure out the back stamp, and the franking at 43 cents








this is a cover with a PF cert I found searching for this one

just a thought: overpaid 1 for french route via panama, but instead traveled to new york by land?

The back stamp should be "BERGE", like written in the front address. A little town in Lower Saxony (Municipal assoc. Fürstenau).

tommtomm,

yes it is. stupid...i was making this to complicated

now the puzzle is the rate

Your cover traveled via Prussian Closed Mail.
Aachen "Franco" indicates that it was fully paid via this treaty.
A single rate via PCM is 28c as Richard pointed out.

It certainly happens that people prepay covers assuming that they will travel via a certain mail treaty/route, and they sometimes get carried via another. I'm not 100% sure what the sender was assuming here, and I agree that a careful inspection of the cover would be warranted to make sure there are no missing or replaced stamps.

It is possible that the sender anticipated a double 21c rate and just overpaid that.

edit: I should add that the NYC transit marking on your cover shows a '7' credit, which is indicative of a paid single rate via PCM. To the left of "Aachen" appears to be a '28', which would be the single rate.

Here would be a good reference cover for this rate and route:

https://siegelauctions.com/lots.php...-745-lot-467

It is also important to nail down the year of mailing.

This may help in that effort.
The John Williams book shows the first use of a double ring San Francisco CDS with out a year was cataloged as SAF-620 and used on Jul 17 1862. That CDS measures 25.5mm 13.5mm 6L. The L is the distance between the first letter of city to first letter of state in mm.

littleriverphil,

all the measurements are 100% as you stated

does anyone know what period
the green achen franco was used?

i mean blue of course

The Siegel link txstamp provided above shows a red boxed achen cancel on the 1864 cover

In a very quick, unscientific lookup, I found the blue Aachen marking in 1864, 1865, 1866 and 1867. The red one was used prior to and also concurrent with it.

I think, actually, given the markings on the cover, that it was used prior to 1868, per Richard's comments, and the rate information that he and I have provided is, therefore, correct for this time frame.

So, just refer to my initial reply in this thread.

Your cover most likely weighed between 1/4 and 1/2 ounce. That would put it at a double rate for French Treaty Mail (42c), and a single rate for Prussian Closed Mail (28c).

The sender did not endorse how he wanted the mail sent from New York, and left that open. He pre-paid it so that it could go by any steamer / mail treaty.

thank you so much for all the help!!!!!!!

a very helpful SCF friend has estimated, with being rough on edges and overpaid rate,the value at 150 to 250 USD. what are your toughs?

I will defer on price. Obviously the item has condition issues, however, it is certainly an interesting usage.

The San Francisco Cogwheel cancels are well struck, and that will help it.

thank you, very gentleman like
hoping to have some opinions on price