Argentina Blackening Of Postal Stationary

Hello,

Can anyone tell why the imprinted stamp on this postal stationary has been blackened ?

Thanks
withdrawn

Someone fooling around ?
Are there any more of these in existence ?

Peter

No idea whether there are more, just saw this one in an online auction.

You know, it could possibly be a mourning cover. Who is portayed on the stamp and when did she/he die ?

Peter

It could be a primitive, but effective de-monetizing of the postal stationery.

In other countries, voided/de-monetized postal stationery was sometimes used by postal officials for internal correspondence or other purposes.

The Higgins & Gage catalogue mentions these.

It says that various envelopes with inked out stamps like this were used officially in the period 1894/96.

Bravo! Nigel / Bob.

Hi Nigel,

Does your catalogue mention why the covers were used in this manner ?

Maybe a shortage and thus these were continued to be used, but the imprinted stamp was already out of validity ?

Thanks
Dieter

Hi Dieter,

The catalogue doesn't explain why this was done but your suggestion sounds reasonable to me.

Here's the note from the catalogue (Higgins & Gage Volume A) in Argentina section D (Official):

As you can see, this note also includes two other envelopes from a much later period with a different styles of blocking (and the words "Sin Valor Postal" - without postal value).

This envelope appears to have been originally H&G B3a (wove paper) or maybe H&G 3 (laid paper) from the 1878/80 issue.

The suggested price of $7.50 is from the 1977 edition.