Today in Postal History

This cover was mailed from Lima.
Lima is centrally located on the Pacific coast of Peru.
The Lima CDS is illegible but the cover can be dated by the sender's oval datestamp.

Interestingly, the cover was preprinted as a business reply envelope
but also had a printed return address for the sender on the back flap.
The sender may have been an agent for the addressee.

The Ames Plow Company was a manufacturer of a variety of tools and machines.

The sender requested routing Via Panama.
The cover would have gone by ship north to the Isthmus at Panama City.
It would then cross the Isthmus on the Panama Railroad.
From Colon on the east side of the Isthmus the cover would have another sea voyage to New York City.
Its arrival in New York City on September 11 was marked by a spyglass receiver on the back.
The spyglass cancel is named for the two adjacent circles which suggest a pair of  binoculars.
It reached its destination in Boston on the same day
via the railroad - probably the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.

The cover is franked with a 1895 20c. deep ultramarine with a pair of llamas (Scott 113).
The second stamp is an 1894 overprint of President Remigio Morales Bermúdez
in black (Scott 121) on a 2c. rose coat of arms from 1880 (Scott 31).
Scott 31 was not regularly issued without having been overprinted with some marking.

Bermúdez was president from 1890-1894 and died in office.

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Pastnotes Index - The First 300 and the Next 208
provides more tidbits about stamps and collectors.

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