U.S. & Worldwide Stamps & Postal History

1911 (21 Mar) a declared-value cover sent to Grunau, Germany from the "Amur-Zeya" volost administration post office in Markovo, franked with 2x10k dark blue, postmarked Amursko-Zeiskoye (17.3.11 and 21.3), Blagoveshchensk (23.4), and Grunau (10.6) on arrival. The letter contained 10 rubles. It was mistakenly treated as a domestic letter and the sender was charged the domestic rate of 20 kopecks (10 kopecks for weight and 10 kopecks for insurance) instead of the foreign rate of 24 kopecks (10 kopecks for weight, 4 kopecks for insurance, and 10 kopecks for registration). This letter left Markovo on 21 March and traveled 28 miles by postal carriage to the Blagoveshchensk post office. Unlike uninsured correspondence, money letters were not transported along the shore of the Amur River while it was freezing or thawing, so the letter remained in the post office until the first postal steamer went upriver. This is the only recorded mail from Amursko-Zeiskoye, where postal operations began in 1902. Illustrated in BJRP No. 53.
Estimate: $250