12¢ Black (17), L-shaped strip of three, large margins including parts of adjoining stamps at top to slightly in at right, used with 10¢ Green, Type II (14), large top and bottom margins, close to touching at sides, tied by "Woodstock Vt. May 31" (1857) circular datestamp on light buff cover to Bergen, Norway, prepaid 46¢ Prussian Closed Mail rate to Norway--carried on the Collins Line Columbia, departing New York on June 6, 1857, and arriving at Liverpool June 17--red "New-York Am. Packet Jun. 6" circular datestamp on back, magenta manuscript "23" credit, red "AACHEN 19/6 FRANCO" (June 19) framed datestamp, magenta manuscript "f6" indicating 6 silbergroschen paid beyond German-Austrian Postal Union border, "St.P.A. 23 Jun 57" oval and "KDOPA HAMBURG 23/6" (June 23) Royal Danish Postal Agency in Hamburg double-circle backstamps, blue "Bergen 3/7 1857" (July 7) receiving datestamp

Very Fine; small mended corner in envelope at bottom right (truly immaterial).

The rarity of covers to Norway with any of the imperforate issues is reflected in the fact that Power Search located only two others--a 10¢ 1847 cover with a repaired stamp, ex Hart (Sale 745, lot 335) and a cover with a repaired block of the 12¢ 1851 in the "Sevenoaks" sale (Sale 799, lot 163). There is also a cover to Norway with a 12¢ 1851 vertical block of six and strip of three in the Charles A. Hirzel collection at the Swiss Museum of Communications in Berne, Switzerland (see Chronicle 244), but of course that cover is unavailable to collectors. To the best of our knowledge, none of the major census works (1847 Issue, 5¢ 1856, etc.) contain any other covers to Norway.

Ex Louis Grunin, Ryohei Ishikawa and Joseph Hackmey.

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