Items for Sale - Postmasters' Provisionals on Cover, Section Three
15672

Item# 15672

Price: $7000

Fredericksburg, Va. 5¢ blue on bluish #26X1 (pre-use creases) tied by Oct 28 (ms) Fredericksburg PAID town cancel on MOURNING COVER from the well-known correspondence of Major Richard Launcelot Maury and addressed to him at 24th Va. Reg, Early’s Brigade, Manassas Junction. Black seal with initial “C” on top back flap tip, slightly reduced at right as are virtually all of the Maury covers. All correspondence covers are numbered Roman numerals in in sequence and in order of receipt; this is noted LIX. Nine of these covers were sold in the 1966 Siegel Rarities of the Word auction (sale 296). A census and SURVEY was done by “Paul Bearer,” a collector of mourning covers who wishes to remain anonymous. Richard Launcelot Maury (1840-1907), son of famed U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, served with distinction as a Confederate army officer. SCV $5,500 as a regular cover without regard to the mourning bonus. ONLY 24 RECORDED in the Crown surveys of all Fredericksburg provisionals on cover. $7,000.

The Fredericksburg provisionals were printed by Robert B. Alexander, proprietor of the Recorder Job Office and publisher of the Democratic Recorder, a Fredericksburg newspaper. Alexander sold his business on October 18, 1861, and the dated examples of the 5¢ provisional range frame September 12, 1861, through November 16, 1861, based on Richard L. Calhoun’s 1997 census. Statistics courtesy of Fredericksburg specialist Keith Littlefield, PhD.

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