1890-S Columbian Covers

I'm loving this topic!
I'll try to find some of mine, I also have a Columbian silver dollar somewhere 1892 and 1893 mintings.

Other Columbian stuff...

Seems to be difficult to find covers with U. S. 1890 Columbian adhesives. I did find another Arcata cover with a first class rate.



Yes, I collect Humboldt county, and it's slightly smaller southern neighbor, Mendocino, The two largest producers of Redwood Lumber in California.
I don't know the population of Fields's Landing, but postmaster compensation for Fields Landing in 1891 was $53.14. For a comparison Englewood's PM compensation for 1891 was $45.00 with a population of 42 people, the population of Humboldt County in 1890 was only 9985. There were 8788 people living in Mendocino in the 1890 census.









Moving south;

Sadly, whoever had these before me didn't treat them well. The bottom one is just the face of the envelope.

Very nice collateral material, mudrat.detector, and an impressive batch of local postal history there, littleriverphil! The WF Mendocino is a jewel. Aviatik, any idea what that blue "R" is?

A "companion" to the USPOD cover posted previously, this one was sent (by an employee of USPOD?) privately, not in official capacity, so return address scratched out. Also, both postage AND registry now had to be paid, hence 30c franking for 11 oz. domestic postage (= 22c), plus 8c registry. Nearly three-quarters of a pound in this large envelope!

I'll round out my domestic Columbian cover postings (numerous international ones to follow) with this nice pair illustrating use of the special delivery stamps. Blue SD stamp was already in use when Columbians were issued in January 1893, but since it was easily confused with the blue 1c Columbian, an orange version of the same design was issued a couple of months later. Note, however, that the blue usage here is from the following year regardless.

wyostamp--No clue as to the RX. The envelope is sealed. Holding it up to light it looks to be empty.

My best guess is nothing postal at all-maybe somebody testing a pen.

Blue RX or maybe RD:
100% certainty applied by the recipient. Likely a quick internal notation for replied or read or referred.

Oops, before leaving domestic Columbian covers behind I almost forgot this nice 4th class usage. As I recall (rates book is not handy just now) the 32c pays 1c per oz. for 2 lbs "parcel post" (it was not called that at the time). Tags like this with Columbian franking are very hard to find! It also happens to be the only item in my collection that is ex Rosenthal (the big-time Wyoming collector of 1890s commemoratives and western postal history, RIP).

As a side note, I own Jack's complete set of Kodachrome slides (four or five carousels full, for those who remember the venerable terminology) of his Columbian and Trans-Miss album pages. Any ideas as to what I might do with them?

Guess I can't post that 4th class tag from the Kentucky Wagon Mfg. Co. without its 1st class "album companion" ...

And lastly, a cover that is no longer in my collection but perhaps ought to be ... I had acquired this one for five or six dollars on ebay, and then at some point decided it was too ugly, so I put it back on ebay for sale. To my astonishment the bidding ended at $102!

What was I missing? Help appreciated. Just don't tell me it was worth even more than I got ...

On to international Columbian mailings now ... This franking, paying one UPU rate (1/2 oz.), went through the canceling machine upside down (cancel is on reverse), leaving us with a very nicely centered 2c stamp and its lovely companion on full display.

Tiny covers are like kittens and puppies I guess ...

This cover paid its way from San Francisco to Havana (5c per 1/2 oz. UPU rate), where it received a backstamp, but was then forwarded (free) to NYC, a domestic delivery after all.