United States and Confederate States Postal History continued...

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FINE APPEARANCE. AN EXTREMELY RARE COVER WITH THE HOPEDALE PENNY POST STAMP AND PRINTED CORNER CARD, CONTAINING A LETTER FROM ONE OF THE ORIGINAL FOUNDERS OF THIS RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. ONLY NINE COVERS BEARING THE 84L1 STAMP ARE RECORDED.

The Hopedale religious community established its Penny Post in 1849, so that mail could be brought to the nearest post office at Milford on a regular basis -- it is similar in concept to the Glen Haven post -- this was not an illegal service designed to circumvent government mails, but was a supplemental post in the absence of a community post office. The small stamps used to prepay the local charge were never cancelled and usually affixed on back or in the corner opposite the stamp. In a Penny Post article, Eric Karell documented 16 Hopedale Penny Post covers, including nine with the 84L1 stamp. Only three of the 16 covers have the Hopedale Community corner card. In the original letter accompanying this cover, the writer, W. Heywood, discusses the reasons for printing "500 envelopes" with the Hopedale Community advertisement. (Image)

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VERY FINE AND CHOICE. AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE EXAMPLE OF THE HUSSEY'S ONE-CENT "BANK & INSURANCE" ISSUE, SCOTT 87L12.

Only three are contained in the online records of the Philatelic Foundation. With 2004 P.F. certificate. Listed but unpriced in Scott. (Image)

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VERY FINE AND CHOICE. ONE OF THE RAREST OF ALL INDEPENDENT MAIL USES FROM THE ONLY STEAMBOAT CARRIER TO ISSUE STAMPS.

Prince's Letter Dispatch was established by J. H. Prince of Portland, Maine, and carried mail by steamboat to Boston, which is probably why it continued to function without government interference as late as 1869. The pictorial stamps used by Prince were engraved and printed by Lowell & Brett of Boston (Lowell's imprint appears below the steamboat vignette). Although an abundant supply of unused stamps reached philatelic hands, genuinely used stamps are extremely rare. Larry Lyons records eleven Prince 122L1 covers, including fronts only (The Penny Post, October 2002). (Image)

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VERY FINE. PROBABLY NOT MORE THAN A HALF-DOZEN COVERS EXIST WITH THE SWARTS "FOR THE MAILS" STAMP IN RED. AN OUTSTANDING LOCAL AND 1851 ISSUE COMBINATION.

The Red "For the Mails" stamps were issued by Swarts in 1851 when the 1c rate was introduced. The Red stamps are far rarer than the Blue stamps of the same design, which followed sometime later. Caspary had a small piece and a repaired example on cover, while Middendorf had none at all. We have offered only five different covers in the past 20 years, including an example from the same correspondence in the Geisler collection (Sale 965).

Scott Retail $4,000.00 (Image)

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VERY FINE. AN EXTREMELY RARE EXAMPLE OF THE THIRD AVENUE POST OFFICE STAMP ON BLUE PAPER TIED ON COVER. FROM A NEW DISCOVERY AND OFFERED TO THE MARKET FOR THE FIRST TIME.

The origin of the Third Avenue Post Office was reported in 1872 by W. Dudley Atlee in Vol. X of the Stamp Collectors Magazine, and Atlee's account was quoted in Charles H. Coster's article in the August 1874 American Journal of Philately. It reads, in part: "According to Mrs. S. Allan Taylor, this post was established in 1855 or 1856, by one S. Rothenheim, carrier for Boyd's post. The stamps he made himself, with a handstamp of either brass or metal. He afterwards gummed and trimmed them carefully, and put them up in pill boxes for sale, on the principle that they got lost and destroyed better that way, and more were the sooner asked for. Street letter boxes being generally kept at groceries, the usual place for the stamps was the till or cash drawer, where they got greatly tossed about, and being separate, small and gummed, they were easily destroyed..." Dated covers corroborate the existence of the post in 1855 and 1856. Elliott Perry located four city directory listings for S. Rothenheim (Simon and Simeon), including a letter carrier named Simeon residing at 121 W. 28th Street in 1855, but none in proximity to Third Avenue. A more detailed summary of this information will be found in the Patton book (p. 241).

This is the third recorded example a Black on Blue paper stamp (139L4). Very few examples of any Third Avenue Post Office stamp are recorded tied on cover. The Patton book illustrates a Black on Green stamp tied on cover to Germany (ex Ferrary and Caspary). In our Needham photo files are a second example tied on cover to Germany and an example tied by a New York "PAID" straightline. Our Levi records illustrate a cover with two strikes of the same "PAID" handstamp as on the cover offered here, one tying the stamp, but the photo is cropped above where a Carrier Department datestamp might have been struck (1957 Heiman sale). In addition to the two tied covers just mentioned, we record an additional off-cover stamp with a "PAID" straightline (lot 1552 in our Golden sale).

The use of the U.S. Mail City Delivery datestamp on this cover is also most unusual. Similar covers are recorded with a Price's City Express stamp (see Kuphal collection, lot 1651) and a Boyd's adhesive (see Golden collection, Siegel Sale 817, lot 632, Rothenheim was also a former carrier for Boyd's). We speculate that perhaps Rothenheim did not cover White Street and he simply turned the envelope over to the City Carrier Department and gave them the fee he had collected.

Accompanied by approximately 15 inexpensive covers to H.R. Searles in New York from the same discovery, including stampless carrier and local post uses. (Image)

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