Show Your 1851-61 Era Cancellations And Postal Markings

what a great cover and TX , thank you for the write up, very educational for me

Addressee's probably Henry Tomsett of Staplehurst, died 1863, buried in the churchyard there.

@dutch - your welcome.

@Flightle_Bee - that's interesting, thanks for that.

@txstamp- you're welcome! What piqued my curiousity was that it was addressed just to Staplehurst- no house name or number. But it looks like the town was swarming with Tomsetts- the postman could've put it through anyone's letterbox

2 U S express Mail cancellations, one Boston and one New York, both on cover with 11A stamps

for me strange as I cannot seem to find the new york one in Simpson, and the boston one on page 203 #44 has boston written a bit different. perhaps I am not looking at the right place

the back states, in pencil, S e E PM RR6 241...but what that referrers to I don' t know.

i am guessing mark will know

So the express mail that you have, between Boston, New York City and I believe also Providence, was applied by the Route Agent on board the train as he processed mail. Some of these routes would involve transferring from Rail to Steamboat and so on as needed.

The marking that you have found in the Simpson book, although similar, I believe pertains to the Boston-Eastport-St John (New Brunswick) steamboat route, which I'm pretty sure is a different route - but possibly the Boston part intersected the other route (from your covers), thus producing similar or same markings.

@spqr certainly will know about the New Brunswick route I mention above.

Your covers - are nice, by the way - and show a heavily used route between Boston and New York City at this time via Rail (and at times I think may have transferred to a Steamer as well at intermediate cities).

I want to say, that at this point, there was no real "Express" special mail connotation at this point for these -- that was more of a hold-over from something earlier. This was regular mail processed by a route agent.

Regarding your marking on the reverse, I'd have to see a scan.
It could be a dealer "code" for the price they paid for the cover, or something else.

here is the back. it is in a different handwriting than Charles J diComo s hand on the left

It is telling you where to find the markings in the Skinner-Eno cancellations book.

Except they are on page 341, and not 241.

PM-RR 5 for New York
PM-RR 6 for Boston

Link here -

https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...okmarked.pdf

Skinner & Eno's "United States Cancellations, 1845-1869", illustration number PM-RR6 on page 341 (not 241).

LOL, we were typing at the same time, but duplication of identical answers is good confirmation, even down to the page number correction!

John, lol, funny.

edit: I see so many annotations on the back of covers that have some mistake in them - often in plating/plate positions, where one digit just clearly got transcribed incorrectly. When someone writes 35R1E for example, for a plate position, and I go look and its clearly NOT that -- I always look at 35L1E, for example. Similar here - a 1 character error.

As TX stated, the Express Mail marking on page 203 in the Simpson book is the marking used on the steamboat route between Boston Mass, Eastport Maine, and Saint John New Brunswick. The marking on your covers is on page 189 in the Simpson book and was used on the primarily railroad route between New York and Boston (the route used a steamboat to cross Long Island Sound and around Providence).
The (railroad) Boston Express Mail marking was applied to loose letters handed to the route agent on the trip south from Boston to New York, so it is not seen on covers to New Brunswick.

this is great, and thank you Mark, John and SPQR for helping and teaching me
i really appreciatie it.

now, if I may, I have a bit of a puzzle for me as a non us citizen I am (perhaps) lacking US history knowledge, hoping one of you might be able to help me





it is a cover with a 11 and a Washington dated postmark 1856, to be found in Simpson on page 84 with rarity 4

i am wondering why a telex message was send by regular mail with a stamp on it? is this normal?

with a telex in it stating(i think):

Nyork July XXVIIH WM.A.Bradley, e.st.opposite hall. washn. stearns has got thompsons papers form benedict and gone home. the COL. must head him off and get them by all means
J.M.Nelson

now I am wondering who theese 3 are:

WM A Bradley (there was a Washington mayor 1834-1836 with this name...)
J M nelson
Col G L Thompson
and perhaps we can find out in this context:
stearns
benedict

and what this in super urgent matted would be....


now it came with a note it had to do with "bleeding kansas conflict" no idea if this is correct:
"Bleeding Kansas" refers to a series of violent confrontations in the Kansas Territory between 1854 and 1861, stemming from the political conflict over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed residents to decide the slavery issue through popular sovereignty, fueled the conflict by encouraging both pro- and anti-slavery settlers to flood the territory and fight for control.

that could make this telex interesting historical? but is it correct??

telex is 20th century technology, so that does not seem to be original contents, but, rather, possibly persons discussing the correspondence 100 years later?

The comments about Bleeding Kansas are substantially correct.

Similar to the US Express mail - previously shown, being carried by both Rail and Steamer, here is a postal marking that spells it out - "N .Y. & BOSTON STMB. & R.R.R.".

Simpson page 202-3, tracing 34, rarity 4.

Tobacco merchant blue cameo corner card.

The stamp is a 3c Ty III, #26.

TX,
so what was the code messaging in that time, 1858, and would a message be in this format?

it states telex, but is it that? or telegraph

or is it just bogus