1946 Panama Cover To NY Odd Placement Of Stamps

I thought the placement of the stamps was very unusual and the fact that they didn't get damaged in delivery. Who addresses a cover and leaves no room for stamps? Also no cancel applied in the USA. I assume the staple was applied after the cover was opened. Any thoughts?

Regular backstamping of mail in the US was pretty much limited to Special Delivery, Registered, and General Delivery by this time.

Yes, the contents were stapled to the enclosures when received. The staple should be carefully removed.

I agree the envelope was addressed ... then the sender applied the stamps. The practice of applying the stamp to the upper right corner facilitates machine canceling. Thus envelopes with stamps placed elsewhere are quite common before the 1880s. Finding the stamps on the reverse side is also fairly common in some foreign countries.