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I got this recently in one of Roy's online auctions, one of a lot of six such covers. 

...

Here's a commercial cover from October 29, 1813.

   

It is addressed to:

Monsieur
Monsieur p re
Castres St Martin
Par Limoux
A Chalabre

That would appear to be Father [père] Castres St. Marin. And, it would also appear that the cover was sent to Chalabre a small town near Limoux. In 1806, Limoux had a population of 5,723. Both are in the Languedoc Region in southern France

The linear hand-stamp on the cover indicates that it was mailed from Prades in Département 65. This is supported by the letter inside which indicates that it was written by a gentleman named Mulló in Jujols (near Prades) on October 29, 1813.

Chalabre is just over 100km north of Jujols which would explain the manuscript 4 on the cover. The postage in 1813 would have been 4 décimes for a single letter weighing less than 6g traveling between 100 and 200km.

As far as I can tell, M. Mulló writes in a French with a non-standard orthography and, perhaps, a bit of Occitan influence thrown in.

Jajols Le 29. 8bre 1813
Monsieur p.re Castres jaj Reseu da l’atre
Du 21. Courant mois, et je vous Dire pour
Seffinir; De faire Venir a checher ma laine
de plus prait posible que l’ous pouvrai, par le
Voiturier, quil vous plairà, en portant une d’aitre
de Votre nom; Et celà ma bien instruiti
pour une otre foi Soit qui Se Soit
je Vous Salüe
Mulló

There is also a margin note on the left side that reads:

Montant
de pois. á
laine,
a ppe [ = à apposer]
6 . q.t [ = 6 quintats]

Which is to say, “Father Castres, I have received the letter of the 21st of this month, and I write to tell you, so as to settle the matter, to have my wool collected as soon as possible, by whichever carrier you think best, presenting my letter in your name. And this has taught me well for another time, whoever it may concern. I salute you, Mulló”

And, the margin note is “Amount of weight to be entered: 6 quintals [~ 600 kg]. Which is a lot of wool!

   

It was written on good quality laid paper and has a watermark. It looks like an L and M with a papermaker mallet in between. I'm still working on identifying it. I'm assuming it's a local paper.

   

Cheers, Hugh

PS: Meanwhile, following the debacle in Russia, Napoleon is struggling in his war with the Sixth Coalition.

Here is an interesting commercial First Flight cover prepared for Lufthansa's inaugural service on April 11, 1974 of LH656 'Frankfurt-Hamburg-Anchorage-Tokio'. Note the privately printed orange Torii Gate cachet printed on the left side of the cover and the blue box hand-stamp on the right. 

   

There is a pictorial CDS, in black, tied to a 40Pf Deutsche Bundespost 'Environmental Protection' 1973 stamp (Mi.Nr. 776) and a 1972 Berlin 10Pf 'Grunewaldsee' (Mi.Nr. 423).

It was addressed to Hermann E. Sieger, Anchorage (Alaska) / U.S.A. / Airport poste restante.

Their return address, in Lorch (Germany)  is printed on the back flap of the envelope. 

Auxiliary marking included Air Mail Luftpost Par Avion and Drucksache both printed in black ink on the top of the cover.

The Drucksache (Printed Matter) foreign airmail rate in 1974 would have been 50Pf ... 30Pf was the standard printed matter rate and 20Pf would have been the airmail surcharge. This cover has mixed franking ... FRG and Berlin. My understanding is that this was allowed only if the item was mailed in West Berlin. Based on the CDS, this FFC was mailed in Frankfurt-am-Main. In West Germany, Berlin stamps had no postal validity. They were tolerated as a decorative mixed-franking but postal clerks were supposed to ensure that the rate was covered by the non-Berlin stamps.

So, in theory, this item was under-franked. 

As well, the cover was addressed poste restante, to Anchorage (Airport). This was, I understand, a common 'trick' to try to get an arrival or transit marking at an intermediate stop before the piece was returned. 

In this case, it didn't seem to work. 

What makes the cover interesting is the purple hand-stamp, in English, that was applied when the cover reached Anchorage. 

RETURN TO SENDER
PHILATELIC SERVICE
NOT AUTHORIZED

This is a U.S. postal message used when an airport or station does not provide philatelic holding services [poste restante / general delivery] for souvenir covers. In other words: the Anchorage airport postal unit wasn’t going to hold, back-stamp, or hand-back collectors’ mail. 

Therefore, they used the above hand-stamp and returned the item to Sieger at the return address on the back flap.

Producing large runs of souvenirs covers was a big part of their business. (Sieger was also the firm famous for the Apollo 15 'Sieger Covers'). So, while they didn't get the Anchorage transit cancel they wanted, they did get this NOT AUTHORIZED hand-stamp. Probably a lot of them (smile).

Maybe even a better deal. 

Cheers, Hugh

I was delighted to find an unused stamp album from Captain Tim’s Stamp Collectors Club at the Brockville Vintage Paper Show. Captain Tim hosted a radio show on NBC, sponsored by Ivory Soap. You could send in soap wrappers to get stamps from the H.E. Harris Stamp Company.

       

Captain Tim was inducted into the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame. This is his entry on the APS website:

Reginald Stafford Healy (Captain Tim Healy)
(1892 - 1947)

Reginald Stafford Healy was born in Sydney, Australia in 1892. He fought through World War I with the Australian Army and was part of the Allied forces at Gallipoli.

Reginald Healy came to the United States to learn the oil business in Texas. There, he met his future wife, Margaret, a schoolteacher, and they moved from Gainesville, Texas to New York Coty, where he ran the financial side of a small oil company.

The business collapsed in 1929, and after that, he did whatever he could to survive, his son recalled, including sweeping streets. For a time, he had a radio show called “Captain Tim's Stamp Club of the Air” on NBC. Healy used his son’s name as his on-air personality.

In the early 1930s, Henry Ellis Harris partnered with the consumer products firm Procter and Gamble to produce a radio show using “Captain Tim” to sell stamps. For a small price (and a couple of box tops from some Ivory Snow detergent), a person could be a stamp collector. Another Harris insight was that collectors not only needed stamps, but they needed a low-priced series of albums to put them in. The radio show that Harris produced and hosted by “Captain Tim” Healy, offered not only stamps but a small album to put them in. Captain Tim’s albums were produced in the millions.

Thanks to Captain Tim’s exciting tales of battle and stamps, thousands, young and old, joined the rank of collector.”

You can hear a sample show from 1939 on YouTube. Content includes a discussion of how the “war in Europe” is affecting stamp prices:

https://youtu.be/aZ1sz-vu4Xg?si=k3YPJAgE9SpWWujR 

The album is about the size of a very thick comic book. What a great find!

This season’s sessions for the Kingston Seniors Association got underway on September 8 at the new location, St. Andrew’s By the Lake United Church, in Reddendale. The guest speaker was Jim Gould, who provided a thorough and informative talk about US Pre-cancels. He illustrated his talk by passing around colourful album pages which displayed a range of stamps with a wide variety of lettering and bar styles. He mentioned some of the alternative uses for the stamps, including revenue.

Thanks to Jim’s presentation, when I saw the back of this postcard at the Eastern Ontario Vintage Paper Sale, I knew better than to pass on it because I already own two copies. I don’t know if it was mailed from Wolfe Island, but there was insufficient postage. When it reached Watertown, New York, a pre-cancel was attached to record payment of the 2 cents postage due.

I am looking forward to showing this to the class!

I have no idea why I have this cover. Perhaps for the slogan, possibly because it is about scouting, maybe even because I was born in 1953 … but there is was in a bin marked “Phil to be sorted #9”. 

The Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree ran from December 29, 1952 to January 9, 1953. Over 11,000 scouts and 2,000 scoutmasters attended, representing 16 nations and every Australian state. There were even 241 “Lady Cubmasters” in attendance, because unlike the Girl Guide movement, Scouring has welcomed leaders of both sexes. The location was Holroyd, in Sydney, where a quarry business offered 250 acres of space for the event. Council staff, volunteers and scouts spent months preparing the land, installing water, electricity, lighting, roads, and other amenities. There was even a branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia! (Facebook, Old Sydney Album)

The federal government commissioned the commemorative stamp, which was available from November until January.

Unfortunately, none of the “Phil to be sorted” bins I have checked so far - don’t ask how many I have - contain stamps from the Australian states!

For more information about the jamboree, check out the Cumberland Times blogs: https://cumberlandtimes.blogspot.com/201...3.html?m=1

I am starting this thread to capture some of the Q and A from the Stamps and Their Stories sessions. 

If you will be a guest speaker, it may help you prepare. 

I hope it will help all KSC members think about possible topics of interest to new members or prospects. Maybe we could include mini training sessions at a table in our meetings occasionally?

I would like to know how to soak stamps off envelopes.

The first thing to know about soaking stamps is - Don’t do it! At least not until you have studied the envelope in its entirety. Who sent it, who is it addressed to, what was its path through the postal system, what slogans and date stamps and cancellations does it carry? Often the envelope is of more interest to a collector than the stamp. 

The second thing to know about soaking stamps is - Don’t do it! Soaking can cause dyes to run from paper onto stamps. The material you layer between drying stamps can leave embossed patterns on stamps. Modern stamps require dangerous chemicals to dissolve adhesives. 

The third thing to know about soaking stamps is - Don’t do it! Your time is too valuable. Once you have determined that there is nothing on the envelope other than the stamp that you wish to keep, use a small paper trimmer (or scissors) to cut out a piece of the envelope with the stamp centred within a frame of 1/4 to 1/2 inch on all sides. These “stamps on piece” can be organized in stock books, in binders with specialty inserts, or secured on custom made pages with scrapbook tape or glue.

The first class for this fall’s session at the Kingston Seniors Association was on Monday. Jim Gould led the group through a thorough and very interesting presentation on precancels. He brought album pages to illustrate his talk and gave everyone a multi page coloured handout to take home. He explained how this is now the focus of his collecting life. One objective of this series is to demonstrate there is no “right way” to collect. How and what we collect is an individual choice, and collecting styles span a spectrum. Jim provided a superb example of a highly specialized collector!

One of the attendees said she has registered for Stamps and Their Stories every time it was offered, as well as the Collecting History series that Hugh and I offered when KSC was taking a break last winter. She was devastated when she was told the program wouldn’t run because there were not enough registered participants - twice - and was very happy to be sitting at the table on Monday.

I really identified with the participant who said she hoards stamps and has to get them under control!

I got these two covers from Mark at the recent show in Gananoque. 

The first was mailed by Michael Millar with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN. He, and the FAO, were working on Seed Improvement in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia in the aftermath of the world war, when the UN was still new and the Cold War was just beginning. In 1952, it was sent to Dr. Frank Novosad of the Division of Forage Plants, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Ontario -- a Canadian agricultural research hub.

The airmail letter, franked with 75c worth of stamps was marked postage due. There is a large T hand-stamp in red ink inside an upside down triangle on the front cover. On the borders of the cover is a repeating tri-colour pattern in the national colours of Ethiopia.

   

This is a security envelope with a moiré pattern.

   

Stamps:
Ethiopia / Emperor Haile Selassie
Series: 60th Birthday of the Emperor (7 stamps)
Issued on July 23, 1952
25c, Ultramarine
Sc. 323

Series: Commemoration of Ethiopia's Federation with Eritrea on September 11, 1952 (9 stamps)
Road and Broken Chain
Issued September 11, 1952
50c, Purple
Sc. 330

This is a total of 75c. And, as noted above the cover was marked postage due. There are, however, no other postmarking. Nor is there an arrival back-stramp. Not surprising for the time.

Cancel:
Double ring CDS with central bar
Between the rings አዲስ አበባ / ADDIS-ABEBA [The name of the city in Geʽez (script used for Amharic) and Latin letters. Addis-abeba = New Flower in Amharic]
5 12 52 [December 5, 1952 ... the order of the month and year is assumed based on the issue dates of the stamps]

The other, similar, cover is from a couple of months later.

On February 5 (or 6), 1953, another letter was sent by the FAO to the Central Experimental Farm in Canada. This one was addressed to the Senior Plant Breeder in Oilseeds. 

   

The franking is mixed. There are nine stamps from the Haile Selassie birthday stamps, six 10c (Sc. 321) and three 5c (Sc. 320). They add up to 75c, the same as on the first cover. However, there are also two semi-postals. They added 10c in postage (for a total of 85c) and 4c as a contribution to the local TB fund. There is not postage due mark this time which implies that the proper airmail rate to Canada was between 75 and 85 cents. I haven't found a rate table for Ethiopia but there I have found other covers on HipStamp and eBay to the UK and Denmark with a foreign airmail rate from Ethiopia, in the early 1950s, of 85c. So, that's my working assumption ... 85c.

Stamp:
Anti-TB Work
Scott describes the stamp as a Tree, Cross and Snake. I thought it might actually be a Caduceus [two serpents with wings and Hermes' Staff] but it looks more like an Ankh. After giving it some thought, I recorded it in my notes as an image of the Rod of Asclepius [Single staff with one serpent which is the classical symbol of medicine and healing.
Issued on November 25, 1951 [Series of 6 stamps]
5c + 2c, Deep blue green, Engraved
Sc. B21

Cancel: As above. As far as I can tell, the date reads 05? 2 53 [February 5, 1953. it could be the 6th]

Cheers, Hugh

Most members are aware that Debbie and I offer boxes of albums and packets as "U-Pick / 10c per stamp". We bring about 6 big boxes of these to the club every meeting and members are welcome to take selected albums or packets home just by signing them out.

What isn't so well known is that we also offer collections with higher value stamps in them on the same "take them home on approval" basis. But we only bring a small sample of these to the club each meeting. 

Our standard price for these stamps is 30% of Scott, and we don't adjust for the currency difference. And that's 30% OF, not OFF. In other words a $10 Scott catalogue value stamp costs you only $3.00. And a minimum value 25c c.v. stamp costs you only 7.5c.

Since we can't bring these all to the club every meeting, I'm going to post newly available collections here before each meeting. I will only bring them if somebody asks for them, and they will be reserved for that person for that meeting - and available to take home if they want.

Here are this week's new collections (U-Catalogue - 30% of Scott):

1) White Ace album of United States regular issues - used. Includes C1-6, great Washington Franklins, especially coil pairs and some earlies

2) Small collection of New Zealand, mostly mint. Some useful int set c1970s. Nothing scarce.

3) Australia mint - interesting stuff. Blocks, coils souvenir sheets mostly 1960s-1980s

4) Great Britain mint sets from presentation packs.  I've got a Bankers Box full of these. Will provide a randomly selected large zip-lock bag full at a time. No need to catalog. These are offered at less than 60% of face value, counting £'s as C$. i.e. £10 face value costs you C$10. (Current exchange rate is about £10 = C$18.50)

5) South Africa mint collection. Appears very complete from 1950s to 1980. Lots of interesting items.

6) An old Scott International Junior album loaded with really old stuff. A lot of it will be minimum value, but there's lots better stuff too. 

I'm happy to answer any questions, or look for stuff on my shelves for the next meeting.

Roy

I just got back from Australia Stamp School 101 (Smile). Seriously, Richard is passionate about Australia and it shows. He's done a lot of prep and loaded us down with great handouts ... ranging from a book review of The Fatal Shore to maps and notes on the postal history of the Australian States ... die studies and more. 

Great first meeting ... looking forward to next month.