Today in Postal History
Finland to England
March 15, 1894
This registered cover was sent from Viborg (now
Vyborg) on the
Gulf of Finland about 125 km northwest of St. Petersburg, Russia.
Vyborg
is now in Russia
The destination of the cover was Derby about 55
km
northeast of Birmingham in the Midlands.
The addressee was a law student.
Was this perhaps a money letter providing cash for a student?
The cover was franked with stamps from the
1889-92 issue.
There is one 5 pennia green, a 10 pennia carmine and three 20 pennia
orange (Scott 39-41).
They are cancelled by 3 double circle CDS.
The sender requested registration by inscribing
'Rekommenderas'
(register in Swedish which was probably the sender's first language).*
Registration was accomplished by a trilingual (Finnish, Swedish,
Russian)
registry label in which a script serial number 1454 was added.*
The script 14 overwritten to 15
is the sequence number of the registry item on the daily list.*
The clerk probably made an initial error and then corrected it.*
The 14 appears to be in the same hand as the clerk who added the
script registry number.
The wax seal appears to be a sender's monogram and not associated with
the registry process.
On the rear there is a Russian
transit mark for St. Petersburg dated March 18.*
The dotted R in a circle was also
added St. Petersburg as similar marks are known from there.*
The cover arrived in the London Registry branch
on March 15 (red banner receiver)
and was given a crayoned registry blue cross and a blue daily log
number 623.
It was forwarded to Derby where its arrival was noted by an oval registry receiver on March 16.
The apparent magical speed with which this cover
was handled was due to the differences
in the Gregorian and Julian Calendars in use in Finland and England at
the time.
If it was timed to arrive before the due date in Russia
and Finland, it would have arrived with time to spare.
I wonder just how aware people were of this date discrepancy.
*Thanks to Knud-Erik Andersen for his additional comments to clarify the use of this cover.
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