Money Order Business Postmark?

I can't quite figure out this cover. It appears to be a very late use of the 10 cent Columbian and Scott 303 with a Saltsburg PA MOB postmark used as a cancellation, from 1922 to England via registered mail, with some nice reverse postal marks as well. I think MOB is Money Order Business - I guess to indicate a money order? I did not know they had special postmarks for this.

Maybe this was a payment from one stamp collector to another? I'm not sure why a business would be using a stamp from 1893 in 1922.

Correct.

Money Order Business Cancellation - a circular handstamp cancellation containing the initials MOB; intended for use only on money orders but occasionally used on cover.

I see. So the sender probably bought and mailed a money order, and the postal clerk used the MOB cancellation on the cover as well, because he/she had just used it on the money order?

M.O.B. = Money Order Business. Started in 1855 as a way to trace lost and/or stolen valuable mail (Usually) it was sent to and from by the postmaster's in order to insure amounts and keep track for an additional 5¢ fee (to "formally register" it). I just read a big write-up on this in

The American Philatelist, Oct. 2011 edition pages: 924-936

I would think it would flag the item for theft.

It was only sent from post office to post office by only the postmasters and the claim holder only carried a yellow card with the information on it (matching numbers). It wasn't fail proof but was a great improvement to the system. There was different methods but all pretty similar in nature. This is a great topic to collect and explore. I'm just now studying up on it and gearing up to purchase some of these myself.

I see that the original post was quite a while ago, but I have an M.O.B. cover that I'd been wondering about, and now have some answers thanks to you wonderful folks! Here's a pic of it.

Registered mail was required to be canceled but not dated on the front. The office of origin probably grabbed and use the money order business as a convenience and the contents had nothing to do with money order business which was conducted between post offices. The back stamps show the routing and handling of the registered item which had to be signed for each time it changed hands and was also required to be stored in the post office safe.

There is a wonderful article on this in the American Philatelist magazine. I'll see if I can locate a link for this thread.

I managed to find out which one it was in but I'm not a member so I can't bring up the whole document. Maybe you can?

http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/AP...ts_10_11.pdf