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A philatelic friend gave me a gift Thursday evening and it has been the perfect medicine. 

Since early April I have been struggling with a bacterial infection that wasn’t responding to any of the antibiotics doctors at Urgent Care and Emergency were sticking in the IVs. Finally, Prescription #7 - the drug used for the plague - seems to have worked, but the side effects including loss of concentration and balance, which may continue for months after the prescription has been finished, have made the philatelic activities that I love nearly impossible. I cannot read more than a few pages of a book and I have to rewind shows I am streaming because I have “lost the plot.” 

But last night Hugh and I were gifted a cover with a 7 page letter. I have been studying it for almost five hours without a break. My concentration seems to have returned. 

My “philoogling” efforts are being rewarded. Studying this letter is a work in progress, but so far, I have noted:

• The “Via clipper” note handwritten in the upper left corner, and then partially covered with US censor tape - it looks like someone in the censor office carefully wrote “Via” on the tape?
  
• Censor number 2820 was assigned to San Francisco, a major hub for Pacific mail, Google opined.
  
• Given a photo of the cover, Google decided that censor 2820 was instead located in Honolulu.
  
• The letter travelled from Honolulu to Alameda, California in early January, 1943. 
  
• The air mail stamp depicts a clipper ship. 20 cents was the full commercial clipper rate. 
  
• The slogan cancel reads “Buy Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps”. I found a digitized copy of United States Postal Slogan Cancels compiled by Moe Luff and published in October 1950. It suggests this slogan was used between 1942 and 1950, but includes a sample with a postmark dated August 1941!
  

A digitized version of the Luff publication can be viewed here:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3116472

The paper used is a very high quality, with light horizontal line markings at 1/8 inch intervals on the pages. The envelope has the same markings, but on a 45 degree angle. The envelope has a bright red security lining. The paper is watermarked, but I can’t make out the mark until I relocate and charge my light table.

The letter is very chatty and a delightful read, thanking friends in California for the Christmas gifts they sent, talking about the curfew and blackout rules in Honolulu, safety concerns for the writer’s young daughter, and improvising when materials for a knitting pattern could not be found locally. When the writer details the gifts she exchanged with her husband, I realized this was a wealthy correspondent. She received an electric dishwasher and is eagerly waiting for a carpenter and plumber to install it. He also gave her a diamond and sapphire ring. She gave her husband a quilt for his bed, a cow for his ranch, a mango tree and a persimmon tree. 



Mrs. Randolph Crossley was born Florence Pepperdine in 1908. She met Randolph Crossley while touring Asia with her father, and married him in 1928. (Photo from the George Pepperdine Collection: Photographs of the Pepperdine Family, 1907-1997, pepperdine.quartexcollections.com)



I found a wonderful article entitled Randolph Crossley and His Half-Century in Hawai’i by an historian named T. Michael Holmes in The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol. 36, published in 2002. The author interviewed Crossley three times over a two year period from 2000 to 2002, beginning when Crossley was 96. Florence had passed away in 1997, after almost 70 years of marriage. 

https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/s...70/content

The couple had an extraordinary life together: wealth creation; bankruptcy; a father who came into the world with nothing and wanted to leave the same way, expecting his daughters to give up any hope of inheritance so he could found a college; an almost grandmother travelling to Hawaii for the birth of her first grandchild, only to succumb to parrot fever during the journey and arrive in a coma; a daughter remembered for the muumuus she wore to PTA events in Oregon … 

Some say laughter is the best medicine … but I think a good cover mystery deserves that honour!

Morning all! Count on me to forget to ask a question while I was at the meeting last night...

For voting at the AGM, which I will not be at, is there a means for e-mail votes by members so that I can still do my bit?

Thanks! 

I won a few items at Roy's auctions last weekend ... including a couple of covers from the North German Confederation. I'm looking forward to picking then up at the club next week. 

In the meanwhile, I had a look at one of the North German covers I already had. It's a bit damaged (Well, a lot damaged actually) but it's always fun to play with a less-than-perfect cover and squeeze out as much from it as you can.

Here it is. It looks like sometime in the last 175 years someone torn off the upper left corner of this cover. It was not well done. Parts of the letter are hanging by a thread.

   

It was sent from Berlin to Geiersthal / K. Landg. Viechtach / i. Bayern - which I take to mean 'Geiersthal' near or under 'königliches Landgericht Viechtach' (the jurisdiction of the royal court-district of Viechtach) in Barvaria. This is supported by the Halbkreisstemple [Semi-circle] transit / arrival cancel on the other side which reads VIECHTACH. Viechtach is a town on the Schwarzer River northeast of Straubing.

The receiving cancel, on a 1 Gr. North German Confederation stamp issued in 1869 (Mi.Nr. 16), is a single ring CDS with BERLIN POST-EXP.23. 6-9N. inside the ring and 21 5 / 70 in the middle. Post Expidedition No. 23 would have been a branch post-office. 6-9N meant it was processed in the evening.

1 Grochen was the proper pre-UPU postal rate for a simple letter within the North German Confederation or to the southern German States under the 1866-71 postal union. There is a Fr. 1 handwritten on the cover. The Fr. would mean 'franco' and the '1' is in red / orange crayon and would have been written by the postal clerk when calculating the 1st level postal rate. The CDS was applied twice, once as an obliterator.

In 1870 it probably took 2-3 days to reach Bavaria. As noted above the Berlin CDS was clearly dated May 21. It's very fuzzy, but it looks to me like the Barbarian semi-circle or Fan stamp is dated May 24 - three days later. I assume it went from Berlin to Leipzig. Then to Hof on the Saxon-Bavarian frontier. From there it would have gone to Regensburg. -- the local hub. It might have continued to Straubing. The last leg, most likely, would have been by mail coach to Viechtach (where the Fan-cancel was applied) and then to Geiersthal.

   

   

The letter inside was written in Kurrent script which is always a bit of a challenge. This particular letter is (for me anyway) very had to transcribe due to the writers rather cryptic comments that are probably understood by his correspondent but are unkowable to anyone else outside the family. Essentially, he is describing complicated personal, business and family affairs. And, a plan that has fallen through.

It's a good reminder that the past is a foreign country -- they do things different there (smile).

Lots of fun though.

Cheers, Hugh

PS - The letter has an embossed oval in the upper left corner that reads, "Hugo Diehle / Berlin". The Frano-Prussian War is only a few months away. One wonder how Hugo's plans unfolded over the rest of the year. Did things get better, or worse?

The 2026 Canada Post Community Foundation stamps are now available. The same surcharge of 10 cents per stamp / $1 per booklet applies. Instead of animals this year, the stamps feature children gardening and some very personable vegetables.

The Canada Post Community Foundation has provided funding for more than 1,400 projects across Canada since it began in 2012. Funds are returned to the communities where donations were raised. This means Canada Post often awards funds to very small projects that might be ignored by other grant programs. Reading the reports of past winners gives you a sense of the excitement a small public school might experience getting $5,000 to purchase books for the library or art supplies or musical instruments or a piece of playground equipment.



A booklet of these stamps would be a thoughtful gift tucked inside a Mother’s Day card, or a thank you card to a teacher. And I think it would be wonderful to give some of these with blank postcards to a young person and invite them to join you in a “retro” activity!

I don’t collect US stamps but I will be making an exception for these when they are released on July 11th:

   

This is a wonderful example of stamps that appeal to people who don’t collect stamps. I expect these will be snapped up by hard core doll collectors, but they also appeal to anyone who owned one of the dolls pictured. I have wonderful memories of surprising my daughter with palaeontologist Barbie while she was studying palaeo-anthropology at university!

Weeks 1 and 2 enjoyed full attendance. There are only four participants, but three of them are “graduates” of the last session. The other participant was a KSC member some time ago and will be returning to the club.

Bob Gardner’s presentation this week was very informative. Before he started, he discovered he had personal connections to almost everyone in the room, so our discussion felt like a group of very good friends sitting around an antique oak library table. Hugh and I missed the ferry home because we couldn’t get the group out of the room when the class ended! 

We have created an all-new program for this final session, and we really appreciate the club members who have volunteered - not just to present, but to develop and present something that is new! We have incorporated a new hands on session so everyone can practise looking for watermarks, measuring perforations, finding some varieties, working with hinges, cutting a mount, examining stock books and sampling album pages - and hopefully go home and get closer to the collections they have inherited or built over time. 

We are ending with a bang! Roy Lingen has offered himself up as a philatelic sacrifice - inviting the group to ask him anything for an hour. A selfless act of bravery that is very much appreciated!

Week 1 - Introduction
Week 2 - Country Collecting: Saint Pierre & Miquelon with Bob Gardner
Week 3 - Introduction to Marcophily: 250 Years of Postal Cancellations with Hugh MacDonald
Week 4 - Hands On Session: Traditional Tools for Collectors with Richard Weigand, Val Mayers, Jim Gould and Hugh MacDonald
Week 5 - Country Collecting: Germany with Ted Luhtala
Week 6 - An Introduction to Topical Collecting with Janet MacDonald and “17th January” with Guy Monette
Week 7 - Digital Demos: New Tools for Collectors with Hugh and Janet MacDonald
Week 8 - Ask a Dealer Anything with Roy Lingen

I just put together 3 photo boxes of new stock of vintage picture postcards, most used. Most pre-1920. About 500+ cards per box. Many vintage Greeting cards. Most from USA, some foreign, very little Canada.

Your choice, 50 cents per card. Available for take-home approval. Let me know any interest and I'll make sure to bring them to the next meeting.

Roy

Received from a local Kingston resident:

Quote:We were transporting a relative's stamp collection (including many day-of-issue stamps/first day covers) to Kingston, but can't now find it. All we can think of is that it may have been taken from our car at the Invista Centre while we were watching our daughter's hockey game on Friday, April 24.

The stamps and envelopes were in two boxes and an envelope  - one was originally a "Toe Warmers" box with those words in red on the cover. The other box was plain white, with the word "STAMPS"  printed on it.

The day-of-issue envelopes were addressed to various Charlesworths (Barbara, David, Mark and John) at PO Box 603, Deep River, ON.

If you do have any contact with those stamps, or have any other ideas for people we should contact, please let me know.

Contact provided their cell phone number but for privacy reasons I have not published it. Any member coming across this collection may contact me and I will pass on their cell number.

Roy

This is a registered cover from Marseille to New York City posted on September 12, 1946. It is significantly over-franked as a philatelic souvenir with the complete set of 1945 'Committee' Series II stamps. 

The cover was mailed just before the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) was replaced by the French Fourth Republic. 

[b]Stamps[/b]:
France II Issue / Committee French Postage Stamps
Arc de Triomphe, Values overprinted in Black
Prepared and printed by the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Made available by AMG [Allied Military Government] postal agency to the Provisional Government of General De Gaule to replace Vichy Stamps
All denominations were delivered to the GRNF on October 21, 1944 and issued during 1945.
Series: 30c, 40c, 50c, 60c, 80c, 1.2Fr, 1.5Fr, 2Fr, 2.4Fr, 3Fr
Y&T 702 - 711

France / Liberation of Strasbourg (Coat of Arms)
Issued 1945
4Fr, Brown
Y&T 735

[b]Cancels and Postmarks:[/b]
Receiving Cancel:
Single Ring Die, inside the ring - [b]MARSEILLE-PRADO / BOUCHES DU RHONE[/b]
Centre - [b]18:30 / 12 - 9 / 46 [/b][6:30PM, September 9, 1946]

Hand-stamps:
Registration - [b]MARSEILLE PRADO / R. 630[/b]

Arrival Postmarks:
Oval Registry Postmark, black ink - [b]NEW YORK. N.Y. / REGY DIV.[/b]

CDS Registration, purple ink - [b]NEW YORK. N.Y. (STA. H.) / REGISTERED[/b]
Centre - [b]OCT / 17 / 1946[/b]

   

   

Cheers, Hugh

... for my last meeting with you fine folks until the winter as I head off to summer soccer on Thursdays in the evenings.

It'll be a quick in-and-out-for-me-meeting too, though. I have to get home for a 2 pm online seminar for work, sigh...