Help Identify A Registration Marking On Cover From US To Australia

The registered cover illustrated below was mailed from Key West, FL on March 2, 1904, addressed to Sydney, New South Wales (Australia).

A Double Circle KEY WEST, FLA. date stamp is present on the cover front, along with a Straight Line "REGISTERED" marking at the left in violet. This "REGISTERED" Marking is assumed to be from the Key West Post Office. A manuscript "1298" in black ink at the left is assumed to be the Key West applied registration number for the letter.



The cover travelled to San Francisco in a sealed Registered Package Envelope, so there are no transit markings during its travel. Upon receipt at the San Francisco, CAL exchange office, it was backstamped with a March 12, 1904, DCDS, and the Exchange label #19787applied.



The cover would have travelled to Australia (NSW) in a sealed pouch, so no marking would have been applied in transit.

There is one additional marking on the front of the cover that is the subject of this post.



This does NOT have the characteristics of any US registration marking I have seen in the past. So where did it come from?

One speculation is that it was applied at the Sydney NSW post office on arrival. Can anyone confirm this speculation or provide another explanation.

Thanks to all for your help.


Mike

Hi Mike,

Yep, the "P.P.O. Reg'd. No." mark is the first one I have ever seen "if" it is a USPO S.F. PO marking. Please share any info or other examples you find.
Best regards, Russ

Not properly backstamped for registered mail coming out of a USPOD Post Office (Key West, FLA). May not have been entered into normal mail stream in Florida but handled as military mail to San Francisco being then received at the Presidio, assigned a registry number P.P.O. 82826 then transferred to the US mail in San Francisco via the SF Registry Division. From there the the exchange label 19787 added. As registered mail the Reg. Div. at SF may have handled it instead of SF's Foreign Division (F.D. marking).

The above educated GUESS gets me to include a reasonable stab at an office with a "P.P.O. Registry" marking.

Blow it up if you can.

Edit: Added one word, changed another and added a "s" to a third.

The P.P.O. Reg'd. No. marking was not applied in Sydney.

PPG, What "properly are you referring to? The regulations for mute cancel on the stamps and dated postmarks on the backflaops was not announced until November 1910, did not come into effect until January 1, 1911.

Perhaps the word should be commonly. not properly. I do note that even without the formal regulations, the stamps were mute cancelled front and back as well as the SF PO did back stamp. Additionally while mml1942 gave a reason for no transit markings, the "P.P.O." was applied when the cover was not in a registry envelope.

Edit: To not be accused of being sloppy with "Presidio" I will say, yes there are several locations with Presidio in the name, but I am referring to the Presidio in the City and County of San Francisco, for which "Presidio" is one of the USPOD offices of the San Francisco Post Office. It was originally established September 17, 1776, eventually, by way of Mexico becoming part of the US in 1848 serving as a US Army Installation until 1988..

I have a hard time even with the phrase "not properly" as the registered mail regulations were very exacting and took up numerous pages in the postal laws and regulations volumes.

Mail "coming out" of the origin town would *not* be backstamped at this time period. I see nothing improper about how this handled at the origin P.O.

Bobby:
Thanks for helping rule out Sydney as the source of the "P.P.O." registration mark.

parcelpostguy:
Thanks for the suggestion about the Presidio. I think the only practical way to identify the mark from Presidio or other California post office is a similar marking on another cover with a more clearly defined origin.

John Becker & parcelpostguy:
A review of the PL&R for 1902, Sec.815, confirms that there was no requirement to apply a backstamp to the reverse of the cover.



The postmaster was instructed to include the registration number on the envelope at Sec. 817 paragraph 6 here:


On most registered letters where the postmaster provides this number, he would preface it with a manuscript "Reg", or perhaps place the number in proximity to the handstamped "REGISTERED" marking, and our Key West postmaster did not do this, so we are left to speculate whether the "1298" or the "28286" was the Key West registration number, or if the "1298" might have been applied by the recipient to identify this letter or for some other purpose.

Section 565 (mentioned above in Sec. 815) addresses the canceling of stamps .


Section 566 defines the use of the postmarking stamp on the address side of the envelope:


Section 567 deals with adjusting the date, while Section 568 addresses the requirement that only USPOD supplied ink must be used. These are not shown here.

By the above instructions, the letter was properly prepared, but we can only assume that the postmaster actually placed this registered letter in the required Registered Package Envelope addressed to the San Francisco Exchange Office, as instructed at Sec. 944.



If he did, then the letter would have been delivered directly to the San Francisco post office and its Registry Division.

The general instructions for the handling of outbound registered mail to a foreign destination at the Exchange Office begin at PL&R1902, Sec 955:



Postmasters (clerks) at the Exchange Office are instructed to postmark all such registered matter, but no instruction states whether this is to be on the front or reverse, although in practice, it is typically done on the reverse. At the same time, at Sec. 957, the Exchange Office is instructed to add the UPU mandated exchange label and to strike out other registration numbers. I rarely see this latter instruction to strike out previous registration numbers followed.




Once the exchange label is applied, and the Registered Letter Bill prepared, the registered letter and all others to the same destination are placed in a sealed bag and dispatched to the ship which will carry the mail to its foreign destination. This would end the processing at the Exchange Office.

So where did the "P.P.O." registration marking get applied?

Thanks to those who provided their thoughts. Keep the ideas coming, please.

Mike

I didn't submit this idea earlier because it is wild speculation. The US Navy "Personal Property Office" is responsible for shipping personal belongings of service members, such as during a move. I don't know whether the P.P.O. office also handles shipping of ordinary mail (parcels or registered mail valuables) to friends and family, but it might allow it. I could not confirm whether said office existed in 1904 under the same name, so it could be a red herring, or it could be a lead.

fyi, ICYMI, the sender Dr. C.H. Gardner used to reside at the US Marine Hospital in Port Townsend WA around 1900-1901 and some nice "kicking mule" covers can be found sent by him, including this one from 1900 to the same Mr. Waddington in Sydney (different address).

Schuyler Rumsey auction 108 lot 1274. I did not see any P.P.O. markings on the 5 covers I found from Dr. Gardner out of Port Townsend.