Lot
49 
1867 (Nov. 2) Nicolaefsky, Siberia to Tenants' Harbor, Me. via Honolulu, blue cover with blue "Steamer * Idaho. * Nov 2 1867" double-oval purser's handstamp addressed to Capt. John Bickmore, sharp strike of red "Hawaiian Steam Service" oval handstamp, endorsed "Via Panama", entered mails with "San Francisco Cal Nov 18" cds duplex with quartered cork and matching "10" cent due rating handstamp, docketed "July 7' 1867" at left, photocopy of original letter accompanies; partial flap, Very Fine. Estimate $10,000 - 15,000.
A REMARKABLE LETTER FROM SIBERIA VIA HONOLULU CARRIED ON THE FIRST CONTRACT STEAMSHIP SAILING OF THE IDAHO TO THE UNITED STATES.
This letter was carried by American Bark "Behring" from Nicolaefsky sailing Sep. 22nd to Honolulu arriving Sep. 30th. It was transshipped to the "Idaho", apparently posted at the wharf as there is no Honolulu postmark and bears the "Idaho" Nov. 2nd 1867 purser's oval. Carried by the steamship "Idaho" on her maiden contract voyage (second trip) from Honolulu Nov. 2nd to San Francisco arriving Nov. 15th. Postmarked at San Francisco Nov. 18th and carried by the steamer "Montana" departing San Francisco the following day, Nov. 19th to Panama.
The sender, Albert Smith Bickmore (1839-1914), was an American naturalist and one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History. He traveled extensively in the Malay archipelago and eastern Asia during 1865-69, collecting objects in natural history, principally shells. This letter was written home to his father during his Far East travels, reading "I have come as I had planned up the Gulf of Tartary in a Russian Man-of-war…From Hakodate we crossed the Japan Victoria or Peter the Great Bay on the Coast of Manchuria, …and finally to this city. Since I arrived here I have been studying the different peoples in this part of Asia and shall soon send a second paper on that subject to the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist. The Governor here received me into the greatest kind and offered one a "Centre blanches", over his territory that is to go where I pleased free of any cost… He gave me a small steamer and I have been up the river…to see the natives and examine old monuments."
References: Illustrated and discussed in Fred Gregory's Hawaii Foreign Mail to 1870 as fig. 17-82 on p. II-227.
Realized: $9,500