Lot
784 
1850 (Nov. 28) Lyon, France to Philadelphia Pa., folded letter docketed "pr. City of Glasgow" at top, forwarder's blue "Geo. H. Draper. Havre" straightline at bottom left, sent unpaid, carried as endorsed on Inman City of Glasgow from Liverpool Dec. 11th to Philadelphia arriving Jan. 3rd, Philadelphia blue "6" double-octagon due handstamp for 6¢ ship letter delivered at the port, Very Fine, Letter took 38 days by the new Inman service, 10 days longer than via Cunard to New York., ex-Hugh Feldman. Estimate $300 - 400.
Liverpool-Philadelphia Scheduled Steamship Service: The Inman Line
Inman offered monthly service with three new steamships, the largest and most modern ever built on the Clyde. Philadelphia lobbied the government for a Liverpool-Philadelphia mail contract, but after years of losing freight and passenger business to the New York lines, Inman moved its western terminus there in 1857 and began carrying mail under temporary U.S. contracts.
The first business venture of Richardson Brothers' steamship group was to purchase the City of Glasgow from Tod & Macgregor while the ship was on her fourth voyage to New York. The Richardson group was officially titled The Liverpool & Philadelphia Steam Ship Company, but probably because Inman ran the company from the very beginning it was informally called the Inman line.
Disappointment was followed by disaster when the City of Glasgow was lost at sea after departing Liverpool on 1 March on her second westbound voyage of the year. On 21 April the ship Baldaur, 400 miles north of the Azores, saw a steamship similar in description to the City of Glasgow steeply listing, but found only flotsam when the site was approached.14 Inman later declared the ship was presumed sunk, with the loss of 480 lives.
References: Illustrated and discussed in "The Liverpool and Philadelphia Steamship Company: Early Years of the Inman Line, 1850-1857" by John Barwis, Chronicle 230 (May 2011, pp. 181-187), fig. 2.
Realized: $350