Merchants Exchange, San Francisco. Remarkably bold red oval handstamp with matching "PAID" below in small italic caps, magenta manuscript "40" transcontinental rate on Oct. 1, 1850 folded letter to Waterbury Conn., black "PAID" in arc applied at New York City; the Merchants Exchange at San Francisco provided local residents and transients with mail-forwarding service -- in this case, we have clear evidence that the private "Paid" marking and 40-cent rate were satisfactory proof of prepayment when the letter arrived at the New York City post office, despite the fact that no government postal markings were applied in San Francisco -- a superb example of this extremely rare marking and use from the early period of San Francisco's postal history, illustrated in Letters of Gold

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