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I have long been puzzled by the cover shown below. It appears to be genuine, with correct postal markings (the stamps have faint BN1 '60' cancels), a valid address and 2d and 4d stamps from the Perkins Bacon printing. The cover has a "Ship Letter, Free, OC 10, 1856, GPO Victoria" oval handstamp in red on the reverse.
According to Tinsley ("Stamps and Postal History of Tasmania", RPSL, 1986, Page 46), the rate to mainland Australia and New Zealand in 1856 was 4d, not 6d. I have been on the lookout for confirmatory evidence, but there were no 1856 covers from Tasmania to Australia in the Sato sale and I have yet to find another. Several exist showing the 6d rate to the UK. Can anyone clarify the postal rates from other evidence?

Roger Kinns

Roger,
None of the Tasmanian Postal Acts from 1853 to after 1856 set a 6d rate for Ship Letters to other Australian States. Ship letters ( to 'beyond the seas' which included other States )went up to 6d per half oz on 1 March 1858.
The Acts and notices show:
There was no Late Fee at that time. The next weight step was for 1 oz and cost 8d.
There was a 6d rate for Printed Matter under 4 oz but your example seems to clearly be a cover not a packet or book cover.
Looks like a very unusual anomaly as over paid postage was unusual.
The only vague possibility may be there were some mixed messages about a 6d rate to the UK around this time, but not other destinations, but it seems very unlikely this confused the PO clerks at Launceston.
Maybe I am missing something but one does see 4d Ship Letter rates to Victoria and elsewhere at this time as you would expect from a study of the Acts, not 6d.
Pete

Pete,

Thanks for all your comments. I guess the most likely explanation is that the sender had misunderstood the rate to Victoria and had affixed the stamps before handing in the letter. Can anyone post an otherwise similar cover to Victoria showing the correct 4d rate?

Roger

Roger, here are three covers from Tasmania to Victoria, two from 1856 and one from March 1857. The 4d Ship Letter rate to other colonies is a commonly seen item in my rather limited experience around this time.

Thanks, Pete. That's great. I expect you noticed that the second cover is from the same correspondence as mine, but with the correct rate. I guess the sender only made that mistake once!

Roger

Roger,
No I hadnt actually noticed the two covers were to the same address under the same hand!
It still seems strange to me that your cover is franked with 6d.

I have now hunted through newspapers of the period and found in the Launceston Examiner of 26 April the following ( excuse the typos - its an automated text reader trying to read an old document):
"PosrAr.-Usnder the autlhority of the Act of
Council, 19th Vic., No. 20, the Governor pro
claims that he has made arrangements with
the postmaster general for the United Kingdom
for the transmission by ship of letters to and
from this colony at the following rates :
On every letter not exceeding half an
ounce in weight transmitted by the post
between any place in the United Kingdom
and the colony of Tasmania, direct or through
any other colony, or through any foreign
country,; there shall be charged and taken in
lieu. of any. rates or British postage now
paynble by law on such letters an uniform
British rate of sixpence."
there is confusion about this 6d rate to UK as other notices still show the old 4d rate to the UK.
The rate is clearly to and from UK though and does not explain the 6d rate to Victoria, whihc would still be 4d until 1858. Perhaps the notice did cause some initial confusion in the Post Office. Probably grasping at straws .....

Pete

Thanks again, Pete.

It will be interesting to see if any other overpaid covers show up. There seems to have been a lack of clarity about rates, not helped by changes in the rates to the UK and other parts of the Empire that were not the same as those to mainland Australia.

Roger

I have posted another 4d rate intercolonial cover from 1856 from a recent US auction. To the best of my knowledge there was no 6d rate for intercolonial mail (confirmed in discussion with other 'old hands') which leaves a question about the cover posted by RK. Because the 2d is tied I wonder if the 4d is a 'replacement' for another 2d. The numeral looks like a '60' in the same clarity and disposition as the numeral struck on the 2d but it would not be impossible to find a 4d to replace the other 2d with a similar strike. It may have been damaged and an unknowing restorer has replaced it with a 4d. It would need a close examination to be sure but overpaid covers in that period are almost unknown. Postmasters and senders did not make mistakes to that degree. From my memory I have seen other "Hales" covers with some odd rates.

Malcolm,

Thanks for all your comments. I'm inclined to feel that the stamps are the originals for that cover. it would have been extraordinary for a restorer/faker to go to the trouble of locating a 4d stamp with the the same postmark, the same postmark ink intensity and the same postmark orientation as the 2d - when it should have been a second 2d stamp that would have made it a valuable cover. I guess we'll never know for sure.

The image below shows another interesting 1856 cover. It's in nice condition with a fine strike of the red cds that just ties the stamp as well as the BN1 '68' cancel. It's a shame that the 4d is cut-into at the top of the stamp. The date is interesting. It's 12 September 1856, but it looks like 12 September 1855 at first sight. On close inspection, the apparent top of the 5 is actually the bottom of the L in VDL. The 1856 date is confirmed by the GPO Victoria Ship Letter backstamp. I wonder if it was this cover that led to the comment by Tinsley (Page 23) that 12 September 1855 is the ERD for a 4d Chalon on cover? That might explain Sato's observation that he doubted the existence of a cover earlier than 14 September, as noted in the Feldman sale catalogue (Page 75, Lot 50145) of 27 June 2014.