For Friday, October 6th, 2000

DF50

1703 LETTER WITH BISHOP MARK

Very early posts were usually from Royalty or from military. Later in the middle ages, civilian posts were organized by groups of merchants, but it was not until the seventeenth century that the general public started to be permitted to use an organized postal service. One of the more advanced was started in England in the second half of this century. A great innovation was the use of a postmark to indicate the day the letter was entrusted to the postal service. This postmark was developed by Henry Bishop, hence the term "Bishop Mark". We offer a particularly fine example from 1703 reading 1A/8 (January 8). The letter is addressed to "ffor Mr Ringer att the Golden Ball in Wattling Street att the corner of foyday street...deliver this to his own hand...London" and gives notice of the birth of a granddaughter.

DF50 CDN $100
US $68