Parcel Post Stamps From Collection Of St Louis Postmaster 1910-S

Parcelpostguy might have the answer to this...I picked have a lot of used Q5s from a collection assembled by the Postmaster General of St. Louis around 1910-1920s. A good number the those used Q5s seemed to have the same partial paper attached to the back sides of the Q5s. The question here is what do these backs all have in common...did the post office use the parcel post stamps, especially the lower denominations to mail some postal material to other po's? I've posted a typical example here. Thanks...Scotty

here's is the same scan filled 180 degrees to make the message more readable.. : )

Can you show the front of the pair?

No. The USPOD mailed official business items between offices without needing stamps. Penalty for Private use $300 in its many variations on cards, envelopes, labels and tags allowed the items to move without stamps.

When you show the front of the pair, I will address the other question.


One point of correction. During the period Parcel Post Stamps were available, St. Louis had a postmaster over and in charge of the city post offices in St. Louis. He was not in charge of any RPOs (Railway Post Offices)located within St. Louis, the non-moving ones know as a RPO Terminal Offices. The Postmaster General was the person in charge of the entire USPOD and was located in Washington, D.C. There were a number of Assistant Postmaster Generals each with certain areas of responsibility overseeing parts of the USPOD nationally. If you were a lowly postmaster of a city, no matter the size, you were never any flavor of a "PM General." My comment earlier in this paragraph was made to say, the RPOs reported to a different Assistant PM General than did the City Postmasters thus different spans of control.

for Parcelpostguy...pretty uglified cancel on this pair...
I recall the Postmaster's name was Gemmer or something akin to that

Parcelpostguy
You are correct sir. I over promoted this fellow, I believe his name was Gemmer..indeed he was just the Post Master in St. Louis. Here is a 1893 cover which he had sent to him...maybe as a way of his keeping track of all the upper class hotels he stayed at (?) I have about a dozen or so of these 1893 covers, all addressed the same. I'll have to get them out and using google and the dates on the covers, see if he logically could have been at each of them according to date and distances.

Re: "postmaster"
I think you may be reading too much into your cover. The St Louis postmaster would have received lots of mail, not personally, but as the way of addressing all general business mail to the post office. Note it is addressed to the title, NOT a personal name. The envelope was then likely part of scrap paper collections from the PO which later got sold and subsequently salvaged into the collector market. I too have several covers addressed to the StL postmaster from that same era. None with contents.

John wrote "I think you may be reading too much into your cover. The St Louis postmaster would have received lots of mail, not personally, but as the way of addressing all general business mail to the post office. Note it is addressed to the title, NOT a personal name."

John,
Included in the ones here are about half a dozen addressed to Mrs. Gemmer with her street address, most in the same hand writing. Secret suiter or husband...I'd bet all my money on the latter.
Also I have several addressed to a Mr. Otto Gemmer who at one time had the title of Superintendent Reg'd Div. P.O. St. Louis Mo. Anyway, the name Gemmer appears on a fair number of the covers here, and they were all sent from different hotels across the midwest.
I like your explanation of many of the one's just addressed to Post Master could be nothing more than just part of the daily intake.

My analysis is based solely on the one cover you have shown and few very similar ones I have. There are no names, and none marked "personal".

Here's a partial of one of the covers addressed in this case to Mrs. Gemmer. These covers all came from the same auction along with dozens of 19th and early 20th century US stamps, all no gum. It seems our Mr. Gemmer took the then "advice to remove the gum from mint stamps" as he was then supposedly living near the equator. This was informaton that the auctioneer made available at said auction, which occurred some 40 years back, as I recall. The auction had a number of nice plate number singles, post office fresh, from his collection.

Thank you for the photo of the front of the pair. I just wanted to confirm they were in fact used.

What is going on is a in transfer to the gum from some printed item. The text while readable in some areas shows reference to postmasters and instruction for same. That could have happened before the stamps were sold or after the stamps were removed from the mailing piece with the partial gum still moist. Nothing comes to mind for me as to what form or document has transferred.

Now the single, there is a good bit of interest there. This is clearly a January March cancel, with the day being perhaps '9' or '19' but from the image, the year is tough to make out. If in person examination shows "1913" that make this a Q-5 used during the second (9) or third (19) week month of validity and Parcel Post Service when the stamps were restricted to just parcel post usage.

message removed.

The single was canceled Mar 9 (no viewable year) in the AM, from coletown, maybe?

Edit: colestown being a cherry hill,New Jersey hamlet?

Coletown a community in Darke County, Ohio.?

Best I could get with the image.

Eagletown OK ?
Don

I like don's suggestion!