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Auction: 17025 - Bermuda, Crossroads of the Atlantic: A Postal History from 1617 to 1877 - The David Pitts Collection
Lot: 48

(x) Ship Letters
Because private ships did not maintain regular schedules, unless the ship is identified on the cover it is very difficult to determine what vessel carried a particular letter. The Bermuda Royal Gazette recorded the appropriate shipping news often permitting the ship's identification
Ship Letters
1822 (4 Apr.) entire letter "p Brig Douglas & Belfast" from Thomas Driver to his mother in London, rated "1/3" (deleted) and twice "2/6" and showing framed "belfast/ship letter" handstamp (S4), the reverse with a fine initialled black wax seal and showing faint "bermuda" fleuron datestamp (PM1 with "carrots" 10mm. long) in red across join, Dublin (23.5) and London (25.3) datestamps, all slightly overlapping. A unique routing of mail to London via Belfast, and the earliest recorded date of use of the PM1 datestamp, two months earlier than recorded by Ludington. Photo

Note: Thomas Driver was the first significant painter to work in Bermuda with about five letters known from him

Illustrated on page 7 of "Bermuda Mails to 1865" by Forand and Freeland

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Estimate
£500 to £600