As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m no way a serious collector of nineteenth century postal ephemera, but I will admit to buying the occasional item now and then.

My most recent purchase was inspired by our recent trip to Port Lincoln in South Australia.

It’s an example of a postal cover – basically an envelope without its contents – sent from Adelaide to Port Lincoln in 1877, and it’s interesting because of the multiple postmarks on it – two on the front and two (unfortunately illegible) on the rear.

At the time, Port Lincoln had no rail connection to the rest of South Australia (in fact it never did – the Eyre peninsula rail network was never connected to the rest of the South Australian network) and was consequently very isolated. Mail from Adelaide would be sent by boat – often a sailing ship – across the Spencer Gulf to Port Lincoln for onward distribution, hence the multiple postmarks – the two on the front show when it was received and sorted for onward dispatch – September 28 1877, and the two on the rear the date it was received in Port Lincoln and then dispatched

Unfortunately the Port Lincoln postmarks are pretty much illegible, but I could convince myself the rightmost reads OC 3 77, suggesting that the letter had reached Port Lincoln four or five days after being posted…