Description
Early Israeli postal links / 1st outbound sea mail (SS Marine Carp): 16-5-1948 registered cover from HAIFA to CHICAGO, originally franked 35m per period surface mail rate on 16 May ("First Day" of Israeli post) using 2x 10m & 15m (Ba 3/4) Doar Ivri stamps tied by 2 strikes of Haifa Head Post Office postmark + Head Post Office registry-label; although addressee Stanley Shure (founder of Shure Radio Co.) was founder of Israel Palestine Philatelic Society, non-dispatch of cover & the additional (unnecessary) 5m franking next day tied by HAIFA-4 (income tax assessment office?) postmark (and dispatch + 2x backstamps on reverse) suggests the sender may have known he missed the 16 May departure of either ship SS Franconia or SS Argentina (identity unknown) which docked in Haifa on the 12th/13th and carried [pre-State] mail for abroad that had accumulated at the port's postal warehouse, and re-deposited the mail at a different Post Office in order to board the newly docked SS Marine Carp, which brought in Israel's first incoming sea mail, and departed on the 20th with Israel's first batch of State-era outbound sea mail (also the only documented non-Israeli ship to carry outbound surface mail until Nov. 1952) - not a trivial matter as the next outbound sea mail was only dispatched on 27 May - from TEL AVIV. Backstamped 6-6-1948 NEW YORK REG DIV transit, next day CHICAGO REG DIV transit & arrival. Slit open at top, well documented & very fine rare mail.