Acquire this ‘new to the census’ stampless folded letter with the scarce “6 ¼” cents postal “rate of convenience” in red (two strikes, weak & strong).
Entered mails in New York City March 8, 1844, carried by the independent mail firm Hale & Company. Addressed to “Mr. M.H. Baldwin, at Baldwin Burnham & Weston, No. 5 Liberty Sq., Boston, Mass.”
Business-related content. Docketing confirms receipt. Excellent example.
Link to the 6 1/4¢ Cover Census site: sixandaquartercensus.omeka.net
***********
Brief History: Per the Act of Congress passed Apr. 9, 1816, a single-sheet letter traveling >30 miles would be rated at 6¢. However, a small number of covers posted 1816 - 1845 show the manuscript rate of 6 ¼¢. This unusual rate can be traced to two foreign coinages. The Spanish silver dollar was used in some parts of the US and the Republic of Texas through the mid-19th century and was equal to one US dollar. One real, also known as a ‘bit’, was 1/8th of a Spanish silver dollar, or 12 ½ cents US. Half of this denomination, the ‘medio real’, ‘½ bit’, or ‘picayune’, was valued at 6 ¼ cents. In British currency, 3 pence was also the equivalent of 6 ¼ US cents. Foreign coinage was legal tender in the US, per an act of 1793, and economic hardship, such as the Panic of 1837, increased the use of foreign coins, as US currency could be in short supply. Thus, 6 ¼ covers represent a large number of US states, not just those with Spanish or British colonial borders.
Throughout most of the 1816-1845 period the 6 ¼ manuscript rate appears. The earliest cover included in this census dates from 1824. It is possible that earlier covers exist but have not yet been identified, or that undated covers predate that item without our knowledge.
Private express companies, primarily in the Northeast, officially rated mail at 6 ¼¢, rather than doing so as-needed as a convenience, with hand stamps created to mark the rate on their own covers. Unlike the 6 ¼ manuscript covers that were traveling >30 miles, these private express covers were often traveling farther, e.g., NY to Boston, as the one shown here.
