Help Requested For Translation Of Some Chinese Markings

The following wrapper was sent from the United States to Shanghai in the 1890s. Can someone help us with the Chinese characters at the right?




Here is a larger image of the marking..



Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

In modern simplified Mandarin the topmost symbol like an inverted V is "of the people" or "peoples" but Shanghai would I think have used Cantonese back then and also the script had not been standardised back then. I suspect the next character could be 11/2 in Arabic numerals, it has curves. I usually think of Chinese characters being mainly straight (ish)lines. My Chinese expert has Covid so I cant approach him at the moment.

Handwritten characters in any language are not necessarily going to look like the printed versions.

For my turn at a wild guess, I believe these are the last two characters:

I have a Chinese neighbor who used to be a (PRC) translator; she thinks it's someone's attempt at writing the recipient's name. When said aloud, it sounds reasonably like "Ferd Boremann," or at least as close as Mandarin/Cantonese can get.

Perhaps someone conversant in both tried "translating" Mr. Boremann's name, figuring delivery might be by a local with no ability to read English. This link has a little bit about the recipient, Ferdinand Bornemann, search the name: https://books.google.com/books/abou...fR4PAAAAYAAJ

classic_paper:

Thank you. Your explanation makes good sense, especially in light of the response in my other post related to Japanese markings on one wrapper.

I am continually impressed at the wealth of knowledge held by members on this forum. And to confirm the business of the addressee. Amazing! A job well done.



Mike