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VERY FINE. AN EXTREMELY RARE SEA POST OFFICIAL SEAL.
Sea Post Offices operated on board transoceanic steamers and processed mail posted on board or picked up at ports along the voyage. The need for official seals was very limited.
Ex "Lake Shore" (Image)
FINE APPEARANCE. THIS IS THE EARLIEST RECORDED USE FROM THE MIDWAY POST OFFICE, AND THE ONLY RECORDED USE OF THIS PROVISIONAL MANUSCRIPT POSTMARK.
According to Wikipedia, the Midway Islands, with no indigenous inhabitants prior to the 19th Century, was sighted on July 5, 1859, by Captain Brooks of the sealing ship Gambia. He claimed the islands for the U.S. under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which authorized Americans to occupy uninhabited islands temporarily to obtain guano. In 1867 possession was formally taken and it became the first Pacific island annexed by the U.S. The first attempt to settle Midway was in 1871, when the Pacific Mail Steamship Company attempted to establish a coaling station to avoid high taxes imposed at ports controlled by Hawaii. It was a failure and all workers were evacuated. In 1903, workers for the Commercial Pacific Cable Company took up residence on the island as part of the effort to lay a trans-Pacific telegraph cable. Later that year, Roosevelt established a radio station and put the islands under the control of the U.S. Navy, in response to problems with Japanese squatters and poachers. The first post office was not formally established there until June 13, 1903, just after this was sent. (Image)