"Steele Box" - Covers

Thank you for taking the time to post these. I am absolutely fascinated by the history of them and all the comments of the other posters. Please continue to do so.
Pete

"Please say "when" if you want me to pause posting of what is in the "Steele Box"."

I will not be saying When anytime soon as these covers and their contents are more interesting than usual.

Hello all,

Sorry to have slowed down. Heres another example of a cover found in the "Steele Box".

The second item that looks like a cover is actually a business card.

The 3 cent stamp you see was also in the envelope with the advertisements for Railroad Brake Shoes. The two cent stamp was the one I found in the loose stamp pile and not it's found it's way back home. No clue why the 3 cent stamp is there at all. Maybe it fell into this envelope when the papers were still loose in the box.

(Please excuse the colors since this photo's were taken inside and in the evening)








---Mark

Hello Folks,

As you know I have a lot of these papers stored in binders in archival sleeves. I forgot about this one since the contents were still stored in the envelope and I could not see them. Unfortunately I cannot find a matching stamp but I will keep my eyes open for it.






---Mark

Absolutely fascinating...

From NYT: date May 16, 1893

RICHARD V. HALL'S BODY FOUND.; He Had Been Missing for Nearly Six Weeks and He Was Drowned.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., May 15. -- The mystery of Richard V. Hall's disappearance has been cleared up. The body of the missing man was found floating in the river over Main Street dock this morning. Hall was a well-to-do farmer, about sixty years of age, who lived in the town of Bookman. On the night of April 6 the Liquor Dealers' Association held a ball at Kirchner Hall and Hall attended it.

This is another cover where I cannot find the stamp. Hopefully I do at some point. It looks like Charley has a friend who is having a bit of fun with him and also creating havoc for the mail carrier.

How do you know that he did not simply fall into the river after attending the 'Liquor Dealers' Association ball' at 2AM? Early spring in NY, water was cold, falling into dark water at night could result in a drowning?
Don

That's a very good question. I did manage to find a part of the New York Times article and it says "RICHARD V. HALL'S BODY FOUND.; He Had Been Missing for Nearly Six Weeks and He Was Drowned." Assuming the article is worded correctly then it implies he was murdered. If he drowned then I would think it would have read "RICHARD V. HALL'S BODY FOUND.; He Had Been Missing for Nearly Six Weeks and He had Drowned."

Again, I am assuming that is what happened and I really don't want to sign up for the NY Times to read the details of the article. I removed the murder insinuations for now. If I find out more then I will update the post.

Hello Everyone,

This is one cover that I really like because of the graphics. Enclosed is a letter to Clapp & Jones Manufacturing for the repair of the boiler for the Newton Fire Departments Steamer. The cover had the contents you see with it. Even the back of the letterhead was interesting. I'm glad it also had the Western Union envelope and slip still inside. This looks to me like it's completely intact and not missing a stamp this time.

I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

---Mark

Hi folks,

Here is another example of an item in the box. This time I did a little easy research and I also remembered to look at the stamps to find the mating stamp which it is.

This is from as you can see a Peter Henderson & Co Seedsmen. Apparently Mr Henderson ranked up there with some of the more famous seedsmen like W. Atlee Burpee who most of us know the name Burpee since his company was famous for mailing seeds. Mr Henderson if you look him up apparently is mentioned on a number of sites including the Smithsonian Institute. He was a Seedsmen and a prolific writer in horticulture and agriculture as one site mentions. He also wrote or dictated over 175,000 letters. He's a pretty interesting guy I'd say.

I have a few other letters from Seedsmen and I want to see if any of them are on the Most Famous Seedsmen list that one site is keeping records on.

---Mark

Today I pulled out something that we don't usually see in an envelope. Samples of material used for making wool suits or coats. There are two covers that have these in them. Please know that the stamp is detached and was in the envelope.

Insurance Policies, one with a Insurance Revenue stamp and the other with a stamp that just says Revenue...

Hi Mforder, I just wanted to say I love what you're posting! It is exactly the area I collect and I wanted to let you know that it is perfectly fine to handle the old documents as long as your hands are dry and clean!

Of course be careful when a document is brittle, especially newspaper type material (poor quality and thin).

If you are interested in digitizing them, I highly recommend a flatbed scanner over a rolling scanner, as a rolling scanner could damage fragile documents.

And just a personal preference, I like to unfold anything that will fit in a 8x11 binder sleeve or a 9x12 or 10x12 print sleeve. I recommend the brand BCW Pro if you are ever interested in doing that. They also have larger sized sleeves.

In my opinion there needs to be some conservation on this material, it has clearly suffered from some pervious poor environmental conditions. I would assume that acidification has started and would discuss strategies and costs with a paper conservation person. It is nice material and further deterioration should be prevented.
Don

Hello Don & Ecostic,

I do agree and that some of the items are in rough shape. If you were here to see what I have you would find that about 75% of it is in pretty good shape. The unfortunate part is that I have nowhere to show everyone what else is in the box, I can only post what has connection to stamps or covers, etc. There are a lot of things that do not have a stamp or a cover like bill heads, schedules, handbills, broadsides, business cards, checks, advertising and so on. While they are in archival sleeves it is only a matter of time like any other paper Ephemera where they will be lost unless something is done. Also taking photo's just does not do it justice.

The hard part is selling even just one thing since a lot if it is interrelated. I just recently contacted Cooperstown again knowing that they would want some of it but again, it would break up the collection. I would also imagine that having someone professional preserve everything would be very costly and I just don't have the means to do so.

The one thing I can tell you for sure is that the box it was stored in had rusted. As I dug deeper into it the more damage I could see. Once I reached he bottom I found that there were a bunch of papers which we deteriorated beyond recognition. It's sad to think what may they might have been. There are also other things that are in need of help and I really touch them at all. It's tough and maybe I can find a way to protect this box and it's contents even more. I will see what I can do.

Here is an image of a handbill that was from the first kidnapping in the United States for ransom. This is pretty close to what it looked like over 20 years ago when I first pulled it out. If you look at the stamps (not a part of the handbill) you can clearly see how dark it is. If you look to the next small image you can faintly see the stamp under the handbill. This should give you a pretty good idea of how thin the paper really is. It's almost as thin as a single sheet of toilet paper.

Next look at the image that shows the full handbill, that's mine. The smaller image at the end it is the digitized handbill that is in the Library of Congress. As you can see mine is in far better condition then the LOC. The reason I mention this is because I think mine would not be in as good of shape if I just left it unguarded by the sleeves. This proves the point you are making. It does need to be protected but luckily the way I am storing for now seems to be helping. I just can't imagine that where I have the papers now will be the permanent home for the handbill or anything else in the future. I't also hard to say let me just give it away for preservation knowing that someone may not be able or have the need to show the connection between the papers.

I meant to also say thank you for the pointers on what sleeves are out there to store things. I will look into that. I am sure that they are much better than what I currently have from more than 20 years ago.

Thank you both for the help in pointing out what is best for these papers, I do agree that they need a long term storage solution.



--Mark


(PS I hope I don't get in trouble for this reply post)