World Postal Stationery, Part 2

The expensive ones! Seriously, this cheapskate would have many more gaps filled if he could just find more of those missing cards at lower prices. At this point I still haven't paid more than US $15 for any one card, tax and shipping included. (I'm only talking about my "One Unused 19th-Century Postal Card from Everywhere" collection here.)

In what areas am I still missing the most cards? Private local posts, mostly in Germany, are far and away the winner in that race. Apart from those, roughly half of my gaps are either Indian states or French colonies. But I just filled a couple more of those:

French India, 1893

France: Offices in Egypt (Port-Saïd), 1900

Bamra, 1894

Erilaz, thanks for the info on the Danish telegram/express card.

Here is a Soviet 16 kopeck airmail stationery cover used for correspondence to the USA. The cover is uprated to 28 kopecks for the October 8, 1966 Tallinn, Estonian SSR registered sending to Racine, Wisconsin. The envelope has the cachet of Intourist, the Soviet travel agency. Letter arrived in Racine on October 14 (4th pic), and apparently picked up by the recipient after the second notice on October 24.

In honor of the 4th of July:

United States, 1885 (Scott #UX8). This is probably my favorite U.S. postal card. I especially love the typeface in the "Nothing but the address" line.

Orange Free State, 1884. My favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien, was born in this country eight years later.

Eastern Rumelia, 1881 formular card, franked with Scott #11. I previously posted an image of an unstamped one.

Here are a couple of nice postal cards that I picked up at WESTPEX this weekend:

Austria-Hungary: K.u.K. Feldpost, 1916.

Zittau: Verkehrs-Anstalt Courier, Abschieds-Karte, March 1900.

On 20 December 1899, the German government passed a law that prohibited the operation of local private posts after 31 March 1900, which led to the issuance of "farewell cards" such as this.

Indore (Holkar State), 1894

My latest acquisition isn't postal stationery, but rather a parody of it. It's a membership card for the International Society of Philatelists, Dresden, from 1890:


The design was very clearly based on this British North Borneo postal card from the previous year (not mine):

Love the jumbled letters of the English and Spanish language names of the Society! Great item.

And, the British North Borneo card is a nice touch.

It was too amusing to pass up. Glad I didn't get outbid!

Samoa: Private Post by J. Davis (1895)

The condition is less than ideal, but since Michel's 2003 catalog value for mint examples is €100 and I only paid US $7 including shipping, I'm not complaining.

Jamaica, 1877

India,

Don't have access to catalogs for identification, any information appreciated, TIA,

It's Jind State, I think 1888, but maybe 1891. Your photo is too blurry for me to say for sure. Post a clearer picture, and I'm sure that Joy Daschaudhuri could tell you anything you'd want to know about it.

So, what have we here? This is slightly larger than a postal card, but it's printed on lightweight paper, more like a wrapper. I don't speak German or Italian, but it looks to be some kind of postal slip relating to a telegram.

Can anyone offer a better explanation? Does this actually qualify as postal stationery?