QUASI OFFICIAL MERCHANTS POST: 1871 Incoming 10k postal stationery envelope (1863 issue) sent to the Border Commissar at Kyakhta on the Siberia / Mongolia border for transmission to a member of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission at Peking, placed on Postal Wagon No.11-12 (Kiev-Nizhnii-Novgorod), then taken by Merchants’ Post across Mongolia to Peking, received 10.8.71 (ms note) Note: The Russian Merchants’ (or Mongolian) Post was a private enterprise under the protection of the Russian Government initiated in 1865, about 10 years before the official Russian Post was established in Mongolia and China. A charge for its service was levied on incoming mail, payable by the recipient. From January 1872 such mail received the standard “Doplatit” (to pay) hs.