Lot
726 
(Tracy & Spear's Express) T&S, manuscript with boxed "Paid" used as frank on 1853, 3¢ Nesbitt entire used as a paste-up, carried from the Placerville area to San Francisco, operating north of Placerville T&S turned this letter over to the Wells Fargo at Spanish Flat with cds for November applied (we know from other letters that the agent at Spanish Flat was using the same canceling device for both the U.S. Mail and WF material), from Spanish Flat the letter was carried north by Wells Fargo to its center at Georgetown where it received four oval handstamps on the back side and one on front, Wells Fargo then carried it to San Francisco, Very Fine. Estimate $4,000 - 6,000.
A GREAT EXPRESS RARITY WITH ONLY TWO EXAMPLES KNOWN. THIS BEING THE ONLY ONE IN COLLECTOR'S HANDS AS THE OTHER IS IN THE WILTSEE COLLECTION.
Tracy & Spear's Express is very rare as it operated but a few months in 1858 around the city of Placerville. By 1859 Spear had departed and Theodore Tracy was working as Wells Fargo's agent in Placerville. In 1864 he became the mayor of Placerville. His brother, Edward was his agent at some earlier point and in 1859 moved to Portland to start his own express operation in conjunction with Wells Fargo.