Cover of the Day - Discussion

[Peter Harvey]

Lots of regular members use this discussion forum to ask questions and to seek help with research, all great stuff, but this discussion forum could be so much more?

Given that most philatelic societies (including the FPHS) are taking a forced meetings break, at least until August, I thought I would start to list my 'Cover of the day' on here and hopefully encourage others to do the same, allowing others to check the forum on a regular basis and see what is being listed. So if you have a cover you might want to list, can I encourage you to do this. You don't have to ask questions, you just might want to show a nice cover, list something you are researching or show that 'gem' you have been hiding away.

So my 'Cover of the Day' 

1915 Cover with neat 'X' Royal Navy type obliterator and with the violet cachet PASSED BY CENSOR E.M.W.H.

The initials are those of Edward. M.W. Hearn a Royal Navy Surgeon serving in the Dardanelles (listed by Gould) at this time based from HMS Reliance I think?

[Chris Weddell]

My cover of the day a folded letter which is one of the earliest items I have in my Royal Marines collection. The letter is dated August 22nd, 1765.

It was posted by a Marine officer Captain Thomas Pemberton. The letter is mostly about outstanding monies owed to Captain Coles  but also interestingly mentions Generals Holmes and Lowther who were the two commanding officers of the ten Marine Regiments which were formed in 1739 then finally placed under the control of the Admiralty.

The letter is tied with a Dockwra-type Government Penny Post mark with the office abbreviation W for Westminster And TH for Thursday and a Circular time mark for the Temple Post Office, 3 o'clock. It is also signed "Balemen" in script by the receiving officer at the Temple office.

[Tony Walker]

Hi Peter

Great idea !  We are lucky to have a hobby which can continue whilst under 'house arrest'.  Will post something in due course.

We MUST try and get more members using the Forum.  I'm not sure why so few do  At this time is is a great way to keep the Society alive and functioning.

Cheers, keep healthy everyone
Tony

[Ross Debenham]

Totally agree, great idea. I will go through my covers and find some mysteries.

[Chris Weddell]

My cover of the day.

A picture postcard which has been drawn by hand with ink and a watercolour wash. The postcard was posted by a new recruit of the Wiltshire Regiment who is based The Barracks, Devizes, Wiltshire to his mother telling her he got there safely. The card is dated for the 8th December 1917 and is tied with a Barracks Devizes dated handstamp.

[Chris Weddell]

Here is the front of the card  :-\.

[Nick Colley]

Great idea. Gives us something to look busy with round the house .....  ;)

Here's an AMLC (1942 Xmas issue, I think, with the red diagonals) used in September 1943. The writer is Sub-Lt. G.E.Moxon, RNVR, serving aboard HM LST 409, writing to his parents. The postmark is US APO 758, 28th September 1943, which was then at Palermo. In an earlier AMLC dated 14th September, he refers to doing a spot more invading. The Salerno landings took place on 9th September. A point of interest, perhaps, for postal historians, is the comment he makes in the AMLC here that '.... these air letter cards are frightfully scarce just now...'. That might be why he's (mis)using a Christmas 1942 AMLC. He goes on to ask that his mum and dad send him a few blank air letters.

I also found a picture of LST 409 in harbour at Palermo on the internet.

chrs
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[Peter Harvey]

Well that is a great start and others to come by th look of it.

I think Chris make a great point that the history behind a cover, or the value of an item may also be significantly by virtue of what it is in the first place. Someone hand drawing a tank on a postcard, whilst they were on the Western front is a great example, not only of the task, but what he was seeing. I doubt many civilians had seen a tank at that time?

Nick, I agreed with the writer these priority air letters are scarce, I missed a bundle at auction a few years back (I honestly forgot to bid on the lot and I was in the room). I had a few from Malta (Army) but can not say I have seen an RN one, let along an LST one.

Best I go and find another cover of the day !1

[Peter Harvey]

Okay, here is my second item, or cover of the day. Its a bit philatelic I know but the combination is very nice and given that it is 1937.... not your traditional first day cover.

A 1937 Coronation Cover (12 May was the Coronation day) franked to the front (incorrectly) with the British Forces 5th series Letter Stamp SGA9 and the Egypt Army Post large 10 Mills SGA13 - technically the Egypt Army Post stamp replaced the use of letter seals. Both neatly cancelled with the MPO CAIRO date stamp.

To reverse the senders address General Staff HQ B.T.E. Cairo.

[Tony Walker]

The point that attracts me particularly to military postal history is indeed, as Chris and others mention, the context and story behind an item.  Not all items of course, but the internet does allow us to ferret around and sometimes turn an innocuous cover into a special one.  So I'll give you the story behind this one to help you pass the time away.

My father fought in both wars, in WWI with the RNAS Armoured Car Division in Russia in 1917/18, a fact I did not learn from my mother until many years into my WWI British Navy postal history collecting, when she produced a photograph album of pictures he had taken during his trip, there was just one philatelic item there, illustrated below, but close to a hundred photographs.

Harry Walker landed at Archangel in mid July 1917 with a party of around 50 men plus vehicles, spares, supplies etc. to form a 'Care and Maintenance' force for the forthcoming winter.  The party entrained at Archangel en route for Kiev which was the forward base of the Armoured Cars at this time.  St Backmatch (the PPC) where the party made one of it's frequent stops to take on water and wood for the train is between Kursk and Kiev some 270 miles to the southwest.

The handwritten date in the message on the postcard is 30 July 1917, some two weeks since he landed at Archangel, so he was passing through here on his way to Kiev.  However Russia was in the throes of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Austrian/Hungarian offensive on the Galician Front was advancing rapidly, and Commander Locker Lampson withdrew back to Kursk to set up the over-wintering base.  Receipt of the PC in Norfolk is noted as 1st PC Sunday Oct 27 - 17 at the top.  There is a rectangular Russian censor mark and a machine cancel on the two Russian 2 kon stamps.

For those stalwarts who braved the Coronavirus last Saturday and came along for the meeting at the UJC, I apologise for repeating what you will have seen if you follow posts on the Forum.  I'll add a couple of PO Walker's photographs which are relevant to item.  No apologies for the waffle, what else can we do these days.
Tony

[Tony Walker]

Hopefully here is an illustration of Harry Walker's postcard to go with my earlier post

Cheers
Tony

[Chris Grimshaw]

Hello Tony

I still have  a couple of your excellent articles for forthcoming publication.  This is a brilliant item,  would be very interested in publishing as a short piece or full blown article  over to you.

Chris

[Chris Grimshaw]

I illustrate a new collecting interest as my cover of the weekend, 

POW Card from  the American controlled camp in Siberia. 

Chris

[Nick Colley]

Here's mine for today: a very ordinary looking naval tombstone censor item. You wouldn't give it a second look, would you? Turn it over, and the return address is Naval Party 100.

Before the internet, that would have been a dead end for most folks: at best a day at the Naval Library, with all the associated inconvenience. However, see https://www.naval-history.net/xBW-RNNavalParties.htm and here's the entry for NP 100:

100                  British Naval Base Personnel Northern Russia & Murmansk – Polyarnoe – by 08.41 – returned UK 20.10.1945 – disbanded 11.12.45. (NP 100 – HMS SPICA Polyarnoe. Commissioned 01.07.44 – 20.10.45.

8)

chrs
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[Alan Baker]

Chris

Interesting that a Hungarian POW writing to his Mother is doing so in German!