Ed Buziak / Postal History
postalhistory.bsky.social
Ed Buziak / Postal History
@postalhistory.bsky.social
Abstract artist, stock photographer, occasional writer… plant-based… fixie rider… ‘60s art student (if you can remember the ‘60s).

My general photography page @buzzed44.bsky.social
My contemporary / modern art page @artbuzz.bsky.social
Pinned
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!
From my postal history collection... 65 square stamps on this opened-up envelope from the German hyper-inflation period of 1923. The inland postal rate of 10 billion marks on 15.11.1923 was for a letter of between 100 and 245 gms.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforSquares #Germany #PostalHistory #Stamps
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.
A scarce postcard (auction price circa €80) of around 60 workers on their morning break. Cards with many people present are sometimes termed « belle animation ». Alas, this 100-year old architectural furniture site is now a solar farm!

#PostalHistory #Postcards #PostedInThePast #Deltiology #France
December 15, 2024 at 1:51 PM
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
November 27, 2024 at 2:23 PM
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
November 26, 2024 at 11:43 AM
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
November 23, 2024 at 8:37 PM
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
Opening and closing eighteenth-century letters at West Yorkshire Records Service in Leeds - no envelopes required.
November 21, 2024 at 9:34 AM
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
I saw this in the library at Kansas University
November 21, 2024 at 9:25 AM
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
An unusual ‘mourning letter’
…Intended to make the recipient cry laughing!
medium.com
November 20, 2024 at 3:30 PM
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
Great Britain postal stationery card uprated with a ½d stamp, sent in 1896 from Malton in Yorkshire to Galați, Romania. As the affixed Romanian postal label (scarce, by the way: I’ve only seen one other) says, the card was ‘Nereclamat’ (‘Unclaimed’) and returned to sender in GB #philately #stamps
November 20, 2024 at 3:09 PM
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
I can’t read this handwriting…
It almost made me cross-eyed in the end!
medium.com
November 20, 2024 at 2:58 PM
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
500 stamps on a roll…
But simply not long enough when hyper-inflation hit.
medium.com
November 20, 2024 at 2:52 PM
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!
From my postal history collection... 65 square stamps on this opened-up envelope from the German hyper-inflation period of 1923. The inland postal rate of 10 billion marks on 15.11.1923 was for a letter of between 100 and 245 gms.

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforSquares #Germany #PostalHistory #Stamps
November 20, 2024 at 2:24 PM