Today in Postal History

   

El Salvador to England
December 28, 1892

This colorful postal card was mailed from San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.*
The card was designed to honor the voyages of Columbus 400 years earlier.
Note the map of the Atlantic in the background tracing the first voyage
of Columbus with dates showing his progress after leaving on August 3.
The banner in the lower right provides the message regarding
the first voyage of Cristobal Colon (Columbus) August 3, 1492.

The card was printed by the Hamilton Bank Note Company of New York.
The indicia was of similar design to the 1892 stamp issued to
commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage.

San Salvador is centrally located about 30 km
inland from the Pacific in this Central American country.
The card is cancelled with a nice strike of the ADMON. CENTRAL DE CORREOS
which I believe is from the postal administration headquarters.

The card is addressed to "Sr. H. Slade, Foreign Office, London."
There are no receiving marks.

The message says, "In answer to your letter I send you this card. Truly yours, GS."
All of this suggests to me that the card was a 'favor' card
sent by someone in the postal system in San Salvador.*

The card was uprated by a stamp on the reverse.
The stamp used was the 1892 UN CENTAVO surcharge
of the 1892 5c gray Landing of Columbus (Scott 70).

The stamp was cancelled with a double circle with bars and numeral 3 handstamp.*


*Bill W. provided the following information regarding this cover:
The Admon postmark of San Salvador dated Dec. 28, 1892 (day either upright or inverted), is a well-known favor cancellation - probably by Seebeck (whose contract specified that he be supplied with handstamps to "cancel" his remainders/reprints with, although he seems to have had most of them made in the US).  The barred "C" in circle on reverse is bogus.  Genuine dia. = 29 mm.; imitation 29.5 or greater (depending on strike).  More than likely, this card was mailed from New York in an envelope after being "cancelled." 

Bill W. also provided these interesting comments regarding Seebeck:
Nicholas Seebeck, incidentally, gets a much worse "rap" than he probably deserves.  During the years he was in charge of the Hamilton Banknote Company, he supplied really nice stamps and did not abuse the arrangement.  He got blindsided though (like much of the rest of the country) by the panic of ' 93, losing control to a group of Wall Street financiers (Russell Sage, Chauncy DePew et al.).  Once they took over, there went the neighborhood as far as integrity went.  Anything that could generate revenue, did.

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