Derby Fine Arts & Antique Sale

Antique Article

Already the first Christmas trees are twinkling away and soon there will be cards on sale with snowy scenes of mail coaches with guards blowing post horns as they struggle through the wintry landscape. This week we illustrate items which in fact, not imagination, are connected with the fascinating subject of postal history.

Until the introduction of the postage stamp early in Victoria’s reign to send a letter was an expensive business. Members of Parliament had free postage, merely writing their signatures on a posted item, these franks were much in demand and impecunious M.P’s could sell them, which they did. The postage stamp appeared just before the envelope. Beforehand letters were folded up and sealed either with hot sealing wax or a coloured wafer. The illustrated turned wafer box made about 1815 stood on a writing desk and contained the small discs of unleavened bread for sealing. The desk seal is plain and businesslike though they could be gorgeously decked out with heraldry.

Postmarks are a field of collecting in themselves, stamped on letters as they passed through the various stages of the postal system. They enable us to discover how quickly letters could be transmitted. For instance a letter from London to an inland town like Derby could take only two or three days carried by relays of horse drawn mail coaches.

Yes, they did exist and were remarkably efficient, though not very comfortable for outside passengers - deaths from freezing were not unknown, inside things were a bit better with copper footwarmers and piles of hay right up to the neck. The mail was put in the boot, a term still used in vehicles today.

The items shown are being offered in the January Fine Art Sale.

Derbyshire’s free antique and collectables valuation event is Mondays and Thursdays from 9.30am to 11.30am at Friary House, 47 Uttoxeter new Rd, Derby.

Phone 01332 296369 for further information.