Today in Postal History
Jamaica to United States
December 6, 1926
This registered cover probably carried an order
with cash from Buff Bay.
Buff Bay is one of those wonderful Jamaican village names like
Bog Walk, Alligator Pond, Crooked River, Harry Watch, and May Pen.
Buff Bay is on the north coast opposite Kingston between Ocho Rios and
Port
Antonio.
There are three strikes of the Buff Bay CDS with
only one on the address side.
The cover was registered by adding a preprinted
registry
label,
a large oval R, a REGISTERED handstamp,
and the obligatory blue crayon crosses on both front and back.
The cover's next stop was in the Kingston registry to receive an oval
transit mark.
I don't think the blue script 273 on the address side was associated
with registry but rather with the count of some bundled mail.
The next markings were two Chicago REG. .DIV.
double
circle
datestamps on the reverse dated December 15.
That may have been the first entry of the cover into the U.S. mails.
It was given a US registry serial number of 85936 with a numbering
stamp.
The cover is franked with 1921-29 second issue
pictorials.
There is a 1d. carmine and orange, a 3d. myrtle green and blue, and
a ½d. green and olive green (SG 92, 96, and 91).
The addressee was the mail order firm of
Montgomery
Ward & Co.
who did a good business serving Caribbean customers.
Their mail room also saved lots of the foreign covers which arrived.
You see a great many saved from the trash bins by Montgomery Ward
mailboys.
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