Today in Postal History
Guatemala to United States
December 16, 1903
This cover was sent from Guatemala City in south central
Guatemala about 75 km north of the Pacific Coast.
There are four faint strikes of the Guatemala City CDS.
There is also an octagonal cancel which I believe was used for foreign
mail.
There are two added circular stamps near the stamp
in
the upper right corner for which I have no explanation.
Help, anyone?
The cover was franked with stamps from the colorful
1902 issue.
The stamps are 1c green and claret quetzal, 2c lake and black
statue of Justo Rufino Barrios (x4), 5c blue and black La Reforma Palace,
6c bister and green Temple of Minerva, 10c orange and blue Lake Amatitlán,
20c rose lilac and black Cathedral in Guatemala, and 50c
red brown and blue Columbus Theater (Scott 114-120).
Routing via Puerto Barrios was requested.
Puerto Barrios is on the Caribbean about 250 km northeast of Guatemala
City.
Puerto Barrios was where mail was forwarded to
the United States on ships bound for New Orleans.
This cover entered the U.S. mails in New Orleans on
December 28.
Its destination was Sharon, Vermont in New England.
Sharon, Vermont, is one of those villages found along New England roads.
Sharon is about 9 mile northwest of White River Junction on Route 14.
It's near the New Hampshire border about four tenths
of the way up the state from the Massachusetts border.
By the way, I couldn't find Sharon in the typical atlas
- it wasn't mentioned in the Rand McNally Road Atlas -
but I did find it by using the USPS Zip Code finder.
I was then able to find it on the Road Atlas map.
So much for indexing.
The cover arrived in Sharon on December 31.
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Pastnotes Index - The
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provides more tidbits about stamps and collectors.
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