Being this never made it through the mail, not really a cover. I am surprised it lasted this long with out being floated off. I got this in a group of covers a few days ago.
That looks like some kind of self addressed stamped envelope that never got used. It would be interesting to know the circumstances. It's a pretty envelope so I'd keep it intact.
Or.... buy yourself a bottle of wine. Drink the wine. Now you have a cork! Carve a fancy design in the cork, add one stamp pad and cancel the stamp. Instant cover!
It seems to me the cover was prepared for a situation in which it would be needed. Perhaps the sender kept a batch of stamped covers ready to send.
What seems a most likely reason to me why it never got mailed was that the 1851 issue stamps were demonetized in 1860-1. It could be that it didn't get a chance to be used before demonetization set in.
The stamp on the cover would have been illegal to use in 1864 if you are implying that news of his Levi Rawson's demise halted the mailing of the cover. I believe the stamp was called back to the US Post Office Department at the start of the Civil War or perhaps as the Southern states seceded but by September 1861 or thereabouts its use was forbidden.
Bruce
I have no intention of removing this stamp from the envelope. Maybe this was just pushed to the back of the desk drawer for many years, or ended up in between some files, still amazing that after over 150 years it survived on this envelope without being floated as an unused no gum stamp.
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