Transatlantic Cover to North Orange, New Jersey

1872

March 25, 1872, Paris to North Orange, New Jersey, envelope without letter contents sent in the British open mail. Letter posted on March 25 in the Paris district office at Rue St. Lazare. The letter was insufficiently paid with a 40 centimes orange on yellowish paper 1862 adhesive, significantly short of the 120 centimes required for a letter to the US in the open mail through the United Kingdom. With the abrogation of the US-France postal convention on December 31, 1869, unpaid letters to the US had to be sent via the British open mail system. The adhesive was canceled with a 6-pointed star of dots with the numeral “2” assigned to the office at Rue St. Lazare. The district clerk marked the letter with the two-line red orange handstamp, AFFR. INSUFF./P.2 (Affranchissement Insufficiant). A Paris exchange office clerk marked the black tombstone style accountancy marking F*R/2F to show the letter was being sent in the open mail to the UK as an unpaid letter at the bulk rate of 2 francs per ounce. A red orange backstamp shows that the letter arrived at London on March 30. Here a clerk marked a debit to the United States of 14 cents and sent the letter to Queenstown to go on board the Cunard steamship “China,” calling for mail on March 31 and arriving at New York on April 10, 1872. A New York clerk marked the letter for 18 cents postage due in depreciated greenback currency (U.S. NOTES). The letter could have been paid 16 cents in coin, but this was not shown. The letter was sent to North Orange, where a clerk restated the postage due in paper currency in black ink “Due 18.”