Assistant Request For New York City 1883 Cover With "C.l." Marking And Returned By Carrier Label

Dear experts,

This is a returned-to-writer cover from New York City, dated 1883 (based on datestamp on back), bearing a circular "C.L." marking in blue and yellow Returned by Carrier auxiliary label.

I have found some explanation on the Returned by Carrier auxiliary label in "Chicago Postal Markings and Postal History" by L. Piszkiewicz (page 367-368), where it is stated as to be "produced by U. S. Post Office Department to be used on undeliverable mail", and "first appearing in about 1884 and extending to about 1900".

Piszkiewicz also states that


and I am also struggling to find a plausible explanation on why this label has been used for this particular cover.

I also would like to confirm the nature of the circular "C.L." markings, which I assume is standing for "Carrier Letter", but couldn't find any information in "New York City Auxiliary Markings, 1798-2022" by A. Wawrukeiwicz and T. Breske - please advise me if I have overlooked anything in this book.

Thank you very much in advance, and I welcome any further insights and information.

- Hironobu

I'm surprised there's been no replies to this, so I'm giving it a bump. I have no specific info, however I'm not sure you can assume CL stands for Carrier Letter -- or even if that is a postal marking.

For completeness, it would be good to have an image of the reverse side the OP states there are markings there - especially the exact date.

Looking at the whole picture, the letter lacks a street address, which is supplied to the lower left as "181Bway / C", which would be 181 Broadway, City.
When that was attempted (and found to be no good), the carrier crossed out the street address and added the "remved" 12/3, as removed and then the label and pointing hand (with appropriate "cannot be found" text, were applied to start the return process. At some point a pencilled date(?) at the lower left was also crossed out.

As for the "CL", ... my first thought that most every postal marking is helpful in some way (an explantaion, instruction, etc.) to getting a letter to its destination and that an interpretation of "carrier letter" lacked any value-added feature. My second thought was a rabbit hole that "CL" might the be carrier initials from that route. Then it made me dig out this cover with a similar label, which (surprise!) also has the same circled "CL" marking.



My suspicion now is that is was applied in the carrier department to indicate "cannot locate" as a quick way to mark the mails and get it speedily to the directory searcher department for further evaluation. I would note in both this cover and the OP's cover, the ink color of the CR and the pointing hand are different colors which would strongly suggest a different time/place for their application.

On a tangent to the label, here is a returned cover with a similar message applied in New York City by a rubber stamp in 1899. Note the same ink color of the pointing hand and the boxed marking on the reverse.

Excellent follow-up, John! Thanks for the education.

GregAlex and John;

Thanks for chiming in and for the very informative comments !!!

As mentioned by John, I should have uploaded the reverse side of the cover, so for completeness, I'd re-upload the both sides of my July 1883 cover,




I have another example of the circular, blue "C.L." marking on a September 1882 cover, bearing a large pointing hand marking of New York Post Office. "Not found" in pencil, but I cannot decipher the next line in pencil.




Hope this may give some additional clue.

Regards, from Hironobu.

Hi all, a follow-up to my previous posts and some new findings.

This is an undelivered 1891 mail from London to New York, returned to writer from New York via Dead Letter Office to London.




Although it does not bear any Returned to Writer auxiliary markings (from New York), it has the nice yellow, perforated "Letter returned to the office by Carrier." label on reverse side. It's a pity that the left-bottom corner is damaged, but I'm sure it still is a nice example of this label.



And what is more relevant to my original post, seeking for any clue for the circular "C.L." handstamp, is that it bears a "B.L. / N.Y." circular handstamp, together with an oval " NEW YORK POST OFFICE/ FEB 27 / ADV. / Due 1 Cent." handstamp.



So, are there anything relating the "C.L." and "B.L." markings ???

If so, then my previous assumption that C.L. = "carrier letter" (which I do think questionable now) could be clearly refuted, but then what does it stand for ?

Any thoughts are welcome, as I have absolutely no idea about them. I have read though the "New York City Auxiliary Markings, 1798-2022" by Tony Wawrukiewicz and Thomas Breske, but could not find any relevant descriptions on them.

I also would love to see any other examples of this circular "B.L." handstamp to seek for any clue.

Thanks, from Hironobu

A follow-up to my previous post;

I found that this 1891 London <--> New York cover's flip was somehow opened, which made me able to scan the front of the cover and the flap bearing " (NON- TROUVE) / NOT FOUND / (N.Y.I.D)" handstamp.



Referring to the instructive comment by John, mentioning the difference in ink colour of the handstamps may suggest the different places that these handstamps were applied, I made a comparison image of the "NON TROUVE", "B.L." and oval "ADV" handstamps;



As this image was taken by a single scan, any significant colour mismatch should not occur (within the image).

Now, it does look as the colour of the "NON TROUVE" and "B.L." handstamps are similar, whereas the oval "ADV" handstamp show significantly different ink shade.

So there is a good chance that the "NON TROUVE" and "B.L." handstamps were applied in the same office, which should be I.D. = inquiry division, before the letter was advertised.

- Hironobu

Here is another example of BL. I will also send images of a cover with a D.S. No.2 which seems to have been used in same way as the BL mark. Both these covers can be found in the Swedish American newspaper Nordstjernan which published the list over advertised Scandinavian covers in New York. 37 and 82 are the numbers of the covers in these lists. Von Rosen had got two letters but both got the same number. In New York Times it can be found that he stayed at another hotel.

Hello aolsson, thanks for posting these stunning covers. The first example (#37) from 1890 looks surprisingly similar to the one I've posted (1891), so they might have some commonality such as year period of the usage. I might have to look into NY newspapers for advertisement of these letters.

I also own a returned-to-writer NYC cover from 1891 bearing the "D.S. No. _" handstamp you've mentioned in your second example. Mine has a "D. S. No. 4" handstamp, and I reckon this stands for "Directory Service No.X", where "X" should be the directory service clerk (or the crew) number.




Thanks again, from Hironobu

Hello all,

I have recently acquired another interesting cover, quite similar to the one I've shown in my first post but having different characteristics.

It is a 1894 letter from Wogansport, North Dakota to New York, New York, and has been returned to sender. The cover bears a New York large pointing hand "Return to Sender" postmark, and the circle "C.L." hand stamp in carmine/red, and also the carrier return handstamp - "LETTER RETURNED TO P.O./NEW YORK, N.Y. BY CARRIER" - in carmine/red on reverse.







This is the first time I've seen a carmine/red "C.L." handstamp, associated with the carrier return hand stamp and large pointing hand stamp - I reckon there should be some relevance to the cover shown in my first post (e.g. blue "C.L." + carrier return label + large Pointing Hand), but still have no idea what the "C.L." stands for ...

Any suggestions are welcome !

- Hironobu

The covers shown so far span 1882-1899, so natural variation in the markings/labels should be expected as practices evolved and handstamps wore, etc.

I had hoped that there would be some other ideas shared over the past few months on the possible meaning of "C.L.", although in the context of the evidence so far, I still think "cannot locate".is very likely.

Then the "B.L." marking shows up on undeliverable foreign-origin mail, which has added postage due aspects for the uncollected advertising fee before it was returned. Like the CL, I suspect the BL stands for some internal acronym relating to the deliverability or handling of the 2 letters.

As for the "D.S.", I had always interpreted it as "Directory Searcher" with the added number to identify the individual clerk, but "Directory Service" accomplishes the same thing.