Highest price ever for a cover from a foreign post office abroad.
KULDJA: 1879 Envelope sent registered from Kuldja to Taganrog (Russia), with 1879 7k pair tied by „KULDJIAN POSTAL BRANCH / PROVINCE OF THE SEVEN RIVERS“ 24.05.79 cds with further strike above, Taganrog bs & manuscript annotation in Russian „Taken out of a (mail) box 24 May“, slightly reduced at top and some light soiling.
The earliest known cancellation of Kuldja, of unrecorded type and earliest item of mail from the Russian post in Sinkiang and the only known example from the period of Russian occupation of Kuldja, a great rarity of the Russian offices in the Chinese Empire
Note: The inscription on the cds shows that Kuldja postal administration was dependent on the Siberian province of Semiryechensk (Seven Rivers)