Forgot to change my 'handle' when posting this from my iPhone so have re-posted it from my 'photo' stream on Bluesky. The 1912 card shows workers at a long-established factory in a local town which closed around 2004. Last year everything was demolished and since replaced by a solar farm.

With postal history I'm generally more interested in envelopes with correspondence if viewing auction listings, and so bought this US Washington stamped and postmarked example from 1882, but I cannot read it because it's written in Pitman shorthand.

#PostalHistory #Philately #Stamp #Shorthand #USA

An attractive cover posted 6.Nov.1939 from Charlebury, Oxon to New York with nineteen George VI stamps making up a total of 2/6d. Several stamps have their lower perforations trimmed indicating from a stamp booklet... higher value inverted watermarks?

#PostalHistory #Philately #Stamps #GeorgeVI #GB

A scarce piece of postal history, rarely seen in auctions or dealers stock-books; a luggage label stamped for a weight of 13.8 kilos according to the instructions on the reverse. It was sent from Dürrenroth in 1916, but I can't decipher the receiver's address.

#PostalHistory #Philately #Switzerland

Most of my pre-19th century postal history collection has mail folded in this way... the missives also being secured with a wax seal on the rear.

#PostalHistory #Letters #GB

An early 'filing system' for documents... now I know why some of my old hand-written documents from the 19th century have holes in them.

#PostalHistory #Archive #GB

An unusual speciality of my postal history hobby is mourning covers, also known as 'trauerbrief' for obituary in German and 'lettre de deuil' for bereavement letter in French... the quite amusing 5-minute read about this cover is on Medium.

#PostalHistory #Philately #PostageStamp #Mourning #France

Returned / Non-Deliverable mail is quite collectible, often with double the amount of handwritten addresses and postmarks, official advice vignettes, red-line crossings-out and maybe tax stamps added for payment of the returned mail to the sender.

#PostalHistory #Philately #PostageStamp #Stamp #GB

Another article from my Medium page... Cross-writing was done when a writer reached the bottom of a page then turned it through ninety degrees so it could be overwritten in continuation of a lengthy message... much easier to write than to read!

#PostalHistory #Philately #PostageStamp #Stamp #GB

Here's a philatelic oddity from my collection which I wrote about on Medium... a century-old roll of German Reich 50 mark stamps (Michel Germany catalogue Nr.209 in dark green and matt violet) printed in 1922 for use in dispensing machines.

#PostalHistory #Philately #PostageStamp #Stamp #Germany

I've pinned this former post from my general photography stream as an intro to my latest Bluesky theme on Postal History which will feature on pre-1944 mail, or letters posted before my birth date!