Galerie

DANZIG Report  -  -   No. 93

Editor: John H. Bloecher, 1743 Little Creek Drive, Baltimore, MD. 21207-5230 USA

JOHN WHITESIDE: Analyzing the Covers
The Bordeaux Correspondence 1759 1803


Last year, our editor sent me a number of copies of 18th and 19th century stampless covers from Danzig, which had been sent to him by Eddie Krause, from Hamburg, with a request that I try to interpret the markings on them. I did send several pages of notes on them [see Danzig Report No.86] but I also suggested that I might like to try to use them as a basis for a series of articles on mail of this period, drawing on items from my own collection as well. This is intended to be the first of these.

The Bordeaux correspondence is mail from Danzig to Schroder & Schuyler, a firm of wine and spirits merchants in Bordeaux. Many years ago, their archives came onto the philatelic market, and, without them, there would be very little mail from northern Europe to be found. There are many letters from a number of merchants in Danzig. As well as dealing in wines, these show the firm also carried on a very large trade in coffee and, sometimes, spices. The letters show something of the way these international trading houses worked, since, as well as being written in French or German, my small sample includes Dutch and Danish, all dealt with exp editiously. Since mail is addressed to France, and since, at that time, mail was usually paid for on arrival, it would seem sensible to consider something of the French postal system, money and weights & measures. A new French postal tariff came into effect on 8th of July 1759. In addition to detailing postal rates within France, it laid down a number of rates for mail from what is now Belgium, Holland and northwest Germany. When French inland rates began to change several times through the 1790s, these foreign rates, agreed by treaty, remained the same until
changes were negotiated in 1802-1805. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 3)

 

Danzig Report  Nr. 93 - October - November - December - 1996, Page 1.