Wells, Fargo & Co, Pony Express, $4.00 black, mostly large margins all around, close but clear at lower left, crisp and fresh impression, paying the quadruple letter rate for a letter of 1.5 to 2 ounces, tied to legal-sized cover by blue oval "Pony Express San Francisco / Aug 10" Running Pony datestamp, manuscript "U.S. Consulate, Honolulu, Hawaii" manuscript origin notation at upper right, confirmed by large red embossed seal on reverse, handed to the trading firm of McRuer & Merill, with dual backstamps of their oval "Forwarded by / McRuer & Merrill / San Francisco", the cover then delivered to Wells Fargo, where it received their blue "Wells, Fargo & Cos Express / SFrco / 10 / Aug" double-circle c.d.s, carried to St. Joseph, Missouri, where it entered the United States mails and was struck with green "St. Joseph Mo. / Aug / 22" c.d.s., then carried onwards via the postal service to the "Hon. Fifth Auditor of The Treasury of the U.S., Washington, D.C." (John C. Underwood), to whom it was sent free of postage as official correspondence, hinge and adhesion remnants to back from prior mounting, some light soiling and wrinkling, ink on front somewhat faded, all of trivial importance given the significance of this rarity, one of only two $4.00 black covers extant, and one of the icons of United States philately; with 2000 Philatelic Foundation certificate, submitted by the Estate of John H. Hall Jr. FKW Census E141
Provenance:
via H.P. Atherton, cover docketed on reverse “H.P. Atherton, 1932, $400”
Dale-Lichtenstein, H.R. Harmer, May, 2004.
Thurston Twigg-Smith, Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, December 5, 2009, lot 36.
The postal history of the Pony Express can be divided into four rate periods, the dates covered under which varied between Eastbound and Westbound routes. During the Third Rate Period, in April, 1861, when Wells Fargo began to act as agent, two adhesive stamps were issued; a $2.00 green, and a $4.00 red, paying the single and double rate per half ounce respectively. Three months later, at the outset of the Fourth Rate Period, and due to the resulting rate reduction, three new adhesives were issued; a $1.00 red, $2.00 green, and $4.00 black, which paid the 1/2oz, 1oz, and 2oz rates. Interestingly, in addition to no United States postage being required, neither was it formally necessary to apply the $4.00 black adhesive; as Frajola, Kramer, and Walske note in The Pony Express: A Postal History “there were no Pony Express fees due since the postal contract specified that five pounds of government mail was entitled to go free on the pony. It is probable that the forwarder was not aware of the provision.”
The forwarder was the firm of McRuer & Merrill of San Francisco, who were extensively engaged in the Hawaiian trade of the period. An advertisement on the front-page of The Polynesian of Honolulu (26 July, 1862) describes them as “Agents of the Regular Dispatch Line of Honolulu Packets” with “particular attention paid to forwarding and transhipment of merchandise, sale of whalemen’s bills, and other exchange, insurance of merchandise or specie under open policies, supplying whaleships, chatering ships, etc.” Their work as agents of the Regular Dispatch Line in that period was further cited in the “Hawaiian Annual for 1931” published by Thomas G. Thrum, which also noted that the agency was later assumed by J.C. Merrill & Co. Interestingly, Henry J. Crocker in his “Hawaiian Numerals” quotes from a 1864 letter from Hawaii’s Postmaster General David Kalakaua, writing to the government’s agent in New York regarding the printing of the 2c vermilion of 1864, noting that the stamps should “when finished, have put up in a case, tightly soldered, and addressed to the Postmaster, Honolulu, care of McRruer & Merrill, San Francisco…as we are nearly out of stamps, an early reply will oblige.”
McRuer & Merrill handled both of the known covers franked with the $4.00 black. In fact, both covers originated in Hawaii, bear cancellations of the same date, and are both addressed to the Hon. Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, though bear different coloured seals on reverse; the cover offered here in red, the other in green.
