Cover of the day 17th April 2020

[Howard Weinert]

Here is my cover for April 17 (it's only 4:15 pm in Baltimore):

A much traveled registered cover sent from Kazalinsk in Russian Turkestan to a marine on the USS Galena at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Postmarked in Kazalinsk on 6 March and 21 and 28 June 1884, in New York on 13 April and 1 August, in Brooklyn on 13 April, in the USA dead letter office on 31 May, and 2nd NOTICE on 11 August. The addressee, Rudolph Rewentlow, enlisted as a private in the US Marines on 26 May 1883 in Brooklyn. On 26 December he was assigned to the USS Galena, a wooden steamship commissioned in 1880 and decommissioned in 1890. The ship was in the Caribbean when the letter first arrived in the US, so the letter was sent to the Dead Letter Office, which mailed it back to the sender in Kazalinsk, who then sent it back to Brooklyn, from where it was forwarded to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After being stationed at Key West from 1 May to 16 August, the Galena sailed to Portsmouth, where Rewentlow finally picked up the letter. He was assigned to the Portsmouth marine barracks on 1 September and deserted on 5 September. From there his trail is lost.

[Michael Dobbs]

Howard

Well what can I say - a very nice cover with an interesting story.  I'm glad you were able to sort out the comings and goings back and forth as I would know where to start!

One thing which intrigued me was the various numerals on the front.  Also its a bit sad that the postmark cancelling the postage stamp on the front is not complete - it actually looks as though there could have been another stamp alongside which held the major part of the postmark of origin.

Nevertheless a fine cover.

Mike  :)

[Nick Colley]

Mike, it's 136 years old, that item, and it accumulated a hell of a mileage, so we're fortunate, I guess, that it's lost only one stamp and, apparently, the registration label. Glass half full!  :)

chrs
N

[Chris Grimshaw]

Howard

This is a cracker. Thanks for posting such an interesting item.

Noting that your posts concern Russia, how far date wise does your interest in Russia extend.?  The Post war Allied Intervention perhaps?

Chris

[Howard Weinert]

Thanks for all your comments. It took me quite some time to figure out the comings and goings of this cover. Yes there is a 7 kopeck stamp missing from the front. A double weight registered cover going abroad required three 7 kopeck stamps. The partially missing postmark of Kazalinsk is repeated on the front and back. A wax seal was also removed. Registration labels did not appear in Russia until 1899 so I do not know what label was on the cover and was removed. The numeral handstamps were applied by US post offices whenever a registered letter was received. Even though the Russian post office wrote a serial number on the envelope, the US authorities tracked it by their own numbers. Chris, my Russian interest extends to 1922 and I do have some nice intervention items.