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Auction: 17025 - Bermuda, Crossroads of the Atlantic: A Postal History from 1617 to 1877 - The David Pitts Collection
Lot: 58

(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
1865 yellow envelope, complete with letters dated 2 and 5 November, from Southampton "Pr. Eliza Barss" to Columbus, Wisconsin, bearing 1865 1d. rose-red wing-margin vertical pair sharing superb "9" K1 oval of bars and with largely fine Hamilton P5 datestamp alongside, additionally franked with U.S. 3c. pink (defective) cancelled by part "new york ship letter" datestamp with a further fine strike alongside a little over-cancelled by "Due 3" handstamp (short 3c. for the U.S. ship letter fee of 6c. beyond the port-of-call, thus due 3c.). The only recorded stamped cover from Bermuda to the United States under the 2d. closed mail rate, and the earliest recorded cover from a Receiving Office using a barred oval. Photo

Note: The contents, headed at Southampton, prove that the number "9" obliterator was issued, in error for "6" at Southampton

provenance:
Morris H. Ludington, June 1999

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Sold for
£2,500