Rhode Island Stampless Covers - 1849-51 Cover to Providence with 1872 European Trip Itinerary on reverse

Rhode Island Stampless Covers & Letters
1871 to 1872 European Trip Itinerary
on Reverse of 1849-51 Cover with New York CDS

View Full Size Itinerary

This letter presents a bit of a mystery as the postal marking would seem to show an earlier mailing than the internal letter/itinerary contents indicate. It is an SFL (Stampless Folded Letter) with the outline and dates of a complete European trip that the writer appears to have undertaken in 1871 and 1872.
SEE Below For: Complete text of European Trip

The CDS (Circular Date Stamp) is a common domestic New York City cancel that was in use from 1847 to 1851 (Red, wide spaced letters -5 Cts in SL). The mystery in the postage is due to the letter's contents being dated from 1871 to 1872. The Postal Act of March 3, 1863 set the rate for first class domestic mail of any distance at 3 cents.

Prepayment was made compulsory on all domestic mail after 1863. There were no other markings of any kind indicating that this letter might have been overseas mail. If it was sent as indicated after the European trip, which ended in September of 1872, then the rate should have been 3 cents, not 5 cents.

If this letter was actually sent by the writer of the European inventory; the Red CDS (red designates paid) indicates a mailing date of March 31, quite a long time after the trip ended. The letter/inventory states that the writer left Liverpool on the 3rd of September. I found one ship sailing from Liverpool on September 3, 1872, which was most likely the ship that the writer returned home on. HMS Batavia of the Cunard Line sailed from Liverpool on that day; arriving in New York on September 15, 1872. At any rate, this still does not account for the 5 cent charge and the 1849-51 typical New York CDS cancel.

I believe the most likely scenario is that the writer of the European schedule used the blank reverse of a folded cover that had been sent much earlier during the 1849-51 period to write on, but that this inventory was not actually sent through the mails.

The Twenty nine/ was most likely the original mailer's personal numbering system and might have indicated the 29th mailing/delivery for 1872 or the 29th copy of the itinerary mailed out and is not a rate marking.

I have printed out the itinerary below exactly as listed in the letter, although I had to do quite a bit of map searching on some of the names as they were not very clear and some names have changed slightly from their 19th century names. I hope that you (my readers) have as much fun as I did locating all of these towns and cities throughout Europe. They include towns in France, Italy Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, England, and Scotland.

Tour in Europe 1871 - 1872

August 1871

16^th Liverpool – London

20^th – 23^rd Paris, France

September

18^th Reims – 20^th Soissons

21^st Reims – Paris

24^th Sunday – 30^th Lyons

October

1^st Sunday – 3^rd Marseilles

5^th Genoa – 14^th Turin – 24^th Milan

November

3^rd Como – 5^th Sunday – 7^th Verona

9^th Venice – 22^nd Lucca – 24^th Florence

December

3^rd Sunday – 23^rd Rome

25^th Christmas Day – 28^th Naples

January 1872

7^th Sunday – 27^th Rome

February

25^th Sunday – 29^th Civitavecchia

March

2^nd Marseilles – 3^rd Sunday – 4^th Lyons

7^th Geneva – 11^th Villeneuve – 14^th Very

15^th Lausanne – 16^th Fribourg – 18^th Bern

21^st Basel – 22^nd Strasburg – 25^th Frankfort

28^th Mainz – 30^th Bingin (Am Rhein)

April 1872

2^nd Coblenz – 5^th Bonn – 6^th Cologne

7^th Sunday – 12^th Dusseldorf – 20^th Amsterdam

27^th Haarlem – 29^th Leyden – 30^th The Hague

May

1^st Delft – 2^nd Rotterdam

7^th Antwerp – 9^th Brussels

10^th Waterloo – 12^th Sunday

13^th Valenciennes – 17^th London

June

29^th Liverpool 30^th Sunday

July

2^nd Glasgow – 10^th Inveraray 11^th Oban

12^th Staffa – 14^th Sunday – 17^th Sterling

18^th Kinross – 19^th Linlithgow

20^th Edinburgh – 27^th Melrose

30^th York – 31^st Sheffield

August

1^st Derby – 2^nd Bosworth

3^rd Birmingham – 4^th Sunday

5^th Stratford on Avon – 7^th Oxford

12^th Portsmouth – 15^th Paris

September

2^nd London – Liverpool

3^rd Leave Liverpool for New York City, NY USA