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The 5c 1877 Arms postal card paid the domestic rate. It sometimes is found uprated one-centime for use to Germany. However, uprating to ten centimes for delivery to Belgium is uncommon. This is an especially attractive example of such uprating.
Here the 1c colored roulette and 4c Luxembourg Print Arms adhesives were used to pay the ten-centime rate to Belgium. The railroad cancel adds to the card’s appeal. Specialists will observe that the card is Type 6.
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A visiting (or calling) card is a small paper card with one's name printed on it, and sometimes a design.
In the 19th and early 20th century, these cards became an indispensable part of the aristocracy’s etiquette for arranging visits. Sophisticated rules governed their use.
The essential protocol was that a prospective visitor would not expect to visit another person in that person’s home uninvited without first sending or leaving a visiting card for that person at their home. The sender would then await receipt of a card at their own home in response. This would serve as a signal that a personal visit would be welcome. On the other hand, if no card was forthcoming, a personal visit was thereby discouraged. At least that’s my rough understanding of visiting card customs.
Here are three of the smallest I’ve acquired. Two are franked at the six-centime rate for a visiting card with not more than five words in manuscript sent in an unsealed envelope; the other, from 1918, is franked at the four-centime rate then in effect:
Small
(98 mm x 38 mm)
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Smaller
(90 mm x 52 mm)
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 Luxembourg-Ville, 6 August 1918, |
Smallest?
(83 mm x 39 mm)
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For the postal historian, visiting cards provide an opportunity to collect the small envelopes in which these cards were often sent. And, if you’re lucky, the card will still be in the envelope! See the examples below.
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| Visiting Cards Received by Philippe (Rev. Philip) A. Schritz, |
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Dippach, 5c UPU visiting card rate |
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5c UPU visiting card rate |
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  Custar, Ohio, USA, 26 Jan 1907 5c UPU visiting card rate |
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 Luxembourg-Gare Hollerich, 5c UPU visiting card rate |
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  Luxembourg-Gare Hollerich, 5c UPU visiting card rate |
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  Luxembourg-Gare Hollerich, 5c UPU visiting card rate |
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Echternach, 5c UPU visiting card rate [card missing] |
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 Esch-sur-Alzette, 10c UPU visiting card rate |
Father Philip Schritz was born on April 4, 1870, in the little village of Gostingen, Luxembourg, in the Grevenmacher canton. He studied at the Royal Atheneum in Luxembourg, after which he was invited to become a missionary in America.
In 1890 he emigrated to the United States, arriving on the SS Westernland on August 9, 1890, at the Port of New York. Later that year, he entered St. Mary’s Theological Seminary in Cleveland, Ohio, studying for the full term of five and one-half years. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on December 14, 1895, after which he served various parishes in the Ohio area.
He died on March 27, 1942, in Gibsonburg, Ohio. But he lives on through the postal history he left with us.
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No, you don’t need a new eyeglass correction. This appears to be the 1928 Luxembourg-Casemates view postal stationery card apparently without stamp imprint used to Germany on June 6, 1932, with 35c adhesive franking.
When I acquired this item, the previous owner had penciled “rare” on the front. Is it? I don’t think so, but it certainly is unusual.
In fact, the sender has cleverly uprated the normal 40c stationery card (with stamp imprint) by placing a 35c Charlotte definitive precisely over the 40c stamp imprint, thus paying the 75c postal card rate to Germany.
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Below is an example of the 40c card with stamp imprint visible:
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Beware of proclaimed “rarities” that make no logical (or philatelic) sense!
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To my knowledge, this double impression of the stamp imprint on the 1.50 F Charlotte postal stationery card has not been previously reported.
The “E” on Expéditeur is also poorly formed.
Has anyone seen other examples of the Charlotte postal cards with printing errors?
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According to the authoritative FSPL Catalogue des Cachets Usuels des Bureaux de Poste du Luxembourg (2001), the Hesperange
T-32 double-circle cancel was used from June 4, 1896 to December 9, 1908, and only 5 examples are known.
Here is a sixth example. It’s from an accumulation of 3,500 Luxembourg postal cards from the late 19th and early 20th century. The strike is dated December 1, 1908 (just 8 days before the cancel was retired). The receiving cancel of Echternach is dated December 2, 1908.
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If the other five examples are on loose stamps, this might be the only card or cover known with the cancel.
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Foire Commerciale Officielle
Luxembourg
Cancels
Luxembourg-Ville’s annual Foire Commerciale Officielle, held in August, began in 1922 with 642 exhibitors under tents. And each year a distinctive rectangular cancel was used, presumably for mail posted at the fair.
But who knows for how many years and on which days in August the distinctive cancel was used?
Here are a couple examples—one from 1922, the first year of the fair, and another from 1930. Who has a complete set?
| 15 August 1922
To Stettin, Germany
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| 24 August 1927
To Harburg An Elbe, Germany
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| 16 August 1930 
To Brussels, Belgium
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 25c Marie-Adélaïde Luxembourg-Ville, 28 Aug 1918, to Geneva, Switzerland |
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An official letter from the Luxembourg government Service Officiel Renseignements [Information Agency] posted shortly before World War I ended. It was sent to the Red Cross Agency in Geneva, Switzerland, after having been opened and censored by the German military censor in Trier, Germany.
The many markings and notations document the diligent work by the Red Cross to provide information on victims of war. For more about the Red Cross in World War I, see my post here.
Here are scans of some of the markings:
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