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Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde died an untimely death on
January 24, 1924. As a memorial, Luxembourg overprinted the 12½c, 35c, 2½ F, and 5 F Marie-Adélaïde definitives with the word CARITAS, adding surcharges of 7½c, 10c, 1 F, and 2 F, respectively. The surcharge proceeds were donated to the Luxembourg Red Cross.
Although 104,745 sets of these semi-postals were issued on April 17, 1924 (valid to July 1, 1928), we seldom see them used on properly rated covers, and almost never on non-philatelic covers. This is perhaps explained by the absence of contemporary rates that required these denominations!
Thus, my recent acquisition of the cover seen below was very special. Here a pair of the 12½c+7½c denomination exactly pays the 25c 20g domestic letter rate for a letter from Remich to Belvaux posted on March 19, 1925.
Has anyone seen a commercial use of the 2½F+1F or the 5F+ 2F? Sometimes I like to dream about what such a cover would look like. The 5F+2F registered sole use shown below from the Administration des Postes et des Télégraphes to Paris, France, April 19, 1924 (two days after issuance) is obviously overfranked.
And this correctly rated registered cover from Wilwerwiltz to Monaco bearing a block of the 35c+10c was posted January 11, 1929, after the Caritas stamps had been demonitized more than seven months earlier!
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