Lot 30154 – 1859 Lapirot 2d. blue, horizontal pair, positions 11-12, on cover from Port Louis to Marseille, France

1859 Lapirot 2d. blue, horizontal pair, positions 11-12, mainly clear margins, slightly touched at top left, showing target cancels and affixed to a front which is split away from accompanying contents which are the second page of this letter from Port Louis to Marseille, France, endorsed ‘P. Str. Northam – Via Suez’, charged with ‘8’ cachet due on receipt, backstamped with ‘GPO / AU 8 1859 / MAURITIUS’ cds the cover is soiled and with some creases, stains slightly affecting the franking, still though a rare early-impression usage

Note: The P&O ‘Northam’ sailed from Sydney on schedule with the July mail and anchored in Port Louis on 7th August, and she left the next day for Aden and cleared the port on 17th August for Suez reaching on the 28th, after having been grounded on a reef in the Red Sea from 20th to 25th August, (and succeeding in getting the ship afloat) the ‘Northam’ put her mail on board the P&O ‘Panther’ which sailed for Marseille via Alexandria, where it arrived on 12th September

Provenance: Vikram Chand

Expertise: Cert. Holcombe (1995) and Brandon (2007)