1890-S Columbian Covers

In this thread I will share my Columbian adhesive covers, maybe 40 or 50 of around 70 in all (but not all at once!). These have been gathered to exhibit various rates and fees, and I have mostly avoided mixed frankings and PSEs, as well as out-of-period uses. I hope they afford delight to readers and I welcome similar participation from others.

This first one (an exception to my no-PSE rule) from October 1893 pays 18c to Montreal, including an 8c registry fee and thus 10c postage. Perhaps the sender thought mail to Canada was subject to UPU international rates and paid (2 x 5c) for a one-ounce mailing? In fact there was a USA-Canada treaty in effect that would have required only 2c (rather than 5c) per half ounce, so in that case the cover would have been 6c overpaid. If, on the other hand, it was in the 2 1/2 oz range (seems not too likely) then it paid 5 rates per treaty.

This cover pays the one cent drop rate at a Providence, Rhode Island post office. The street address, as I understand it, only served to identify the addressee, who still had to pick up the envelope at the office. [Correction added later: John Becker notes that Providence was a carrier office and thus did NOT admit use of the drop rate. This cover is actually a 3rd class mailing, and in fact it is unsealed as required for such mailings by USPOD regulation.]

In contrast to my preceding post [but now see my later addendum to same], this Baltimore cover with a similar "City" address was deliverable, hence it pays the 2c local (same as domestic inter-office) rate.

[I've deleted some remarks from OP that didn't make much sense in light of Mr. Becker's subsequent corrective. Thanks John!]

Your 1 cent Providence cover is single piece 3rd class and would have originally been unsealed with printed contents such as a greeting card, invitation, etc. It would have been delivered. Properly handled, it would have had the date removed from the dial.

(The local letter rate for offices with carrier service was 2c in 1894, thus not a drop letter.)

John beat me to it. Yes, here is a 3rd class rate, indicated by the 1c inter-office franking and the mute cancel.

I'm a bit confused -- are you saying, John, that my Providence cover could not have been paying a drop rate because Providence was a carrier office, with the implication that there was no drop service at such?

Thanks

Stan

Here is another 3rd class inter-office usage, with improper 1st class (dated) CDS but unsealed flap per regulations.

The rate for a 1st class letter mailed in Providence to Providence in 1894 is 2 cents, because they had carrier service. Do you have copies of Beecher & Wawrukiewicz's US and International rate books?

Larger cites had carrier service, thus NO drop rate in the sense that "everyone had to go to the PO to get their mail". With Providence, the major choices were carrier delivery or a PO Box, with the minor option of being held for general delivery. The fact that you cover has a street address and no auxiliary markings to the contrary is a clear indication that a carrier would have delivered it.

Also, a letter sealed today may not have been sealed when it originally went though the mails.

John -- Yes, I have five of Tony W's enormously useful works including the two you mention. But I had somehow failed to get the distinction that a carrier office never offered the option of drop service (except per general delivery). And sure enough, on looking at that Providence cover again I see that it was sent unsealed.

I do not have a listing of non-carrier offices during the Columbian era. Any tips?

One last Columbian for today, with the promise that things will start getting more interesting shortly! I like this 1 oz. domestic inter-office rate because the well-centered stamp escaped the machine cancel by going through upside down, and was given a hand cancel by an attentive clerk before it left the office of mailing.

wyostamp:

The Official Postal Guides for many years had a section List of Free Delivery Offices, with Stations. For the Jan 1891 edition, this begins on page 699 (just happened to be the one on my desk).

Post Offices which were not on these lists would be those with no carrier delivery.

Trying to stay within your guidelines, I find only three Columbian adhesives, a 230 added to a PSE to make the first class rate, a 321 sent from the edge of nowhere, and an E3, the Columbian Special delivery. All of them 1894 uses, Was your mourning cover actually posted in Jan of 1899? Or is that watery ink wicking to close the top of the 93?
Have much more Columbian stationery.

mml1942, thanks for the pointer. I know where I can get one of those contemporaneous PGs, and will now have to fill that gap in my Columbian rates collection.

littleriverphil, comparing the last numeral in that mourning cover CDS to the adjacent "9" seems to rule out your suggestion. But I cannot decide if it is a "3" or an "8" -- quite possibly the latter. That moots the question of what is "in period" for the Columbian issue -- I have tended, perhaps too arbitrarily, to be lenient and say it extends all the way up to June 1898 when the next commemorative series came out.

Would love to know what was the population of Fields Landing (currently less than 300) in the 1890s! I'm guessing from your trio of covers that you collect Humboldt County? I have an extensive collection of early Curry County, Oregon (practically next door), and recall only one or two Columbian frankings in the whole.

Cleveland machine cancel with uncommon "12" for December and probably individual "2" and "6" slugs for the 26th, based on the spacing. Received in Sandusky on December 27th.



(Cleveland also did the same number-for-month substitution for a while c1900 with their Barr-Fyke machine, but that is another tangent.)

All of the Official Postal Guides are hosted on the Stamp Smarter website Library page. Go to the USPOD Publications icon.

I suspect that this 4c stamp, paying double the domestic 1st class rate (up to 2 oz.) from Brooklyn to NYC, was an "aesthetic overpayment" -- given the small size of the cover and the sheer attractiveness of the stamp, prominent in our first-ever adhesive commemorative series. (I know, that last characterization has been debated, given the 1869 pictorials and the 15c Lincoln).

And this one more plausibly pays the double 1st class rate, cover being oversized for a greeting card or some such. Stamp badly toned.