G. H. Wines & Co.'s California Express Eagle and Shield. Printed frank on 1853-55 3¢ Nesbitt entire, origin unknown but evidently a conjunctive use with "Rhodes & Whitney's Express/Weaverville" blue double-lined oval handstamp, to Shasta with "Please deliver immediately" endorsement, Very Fine, ex-Polland. Estimate  $1,500 - 2,000. Cover illustrated in Coburn's Letters of Gold (page 78 and 213). A spectacular frank and one of truly stunning Express Covers.A number of G. H. Wines & Co. covers with Rhodes & Whitney handstamps are known. The relationship between the companies is not discussed in the literature but emerges from the record of an 1862 California Supreme Court case regarding the 1855 theft of $1360.25 in coin from and relating to a consignment of gold dust to the Branch Mint in San Francisco. Wines & Co. was based in San Francisco and operated between Sacramento and San Francisco and beyond California. Rhodes & Whitney were based in Weaverville and operated from Sacramento to Weaverville and elsewhere in the northern mines. Wines & Co. and Rhodes & Whitney connected with one another in Sacramento, but the association was more than geographical. G. H. Wines and Jesse Rhodes (starting in 1855) each had a Shasta businessman named Cornelius S. Whitney as their partner in their companies. The companies were co-owned. $0 (Image)