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This description has been created to the best of our ability, and mayoccasionally contain errors. You are purchasing the exact item shown in thephotos. Please review all pictures carefully, as they serve as the primarydescription of the item's current condition, features, and details.
A green printed express frank reading "PAID / Wells, Fargo & Co. / OVER OUR CALIFORNIA AND COAST ROUTES." on a three-cent red Nesbitt government stamped envelope, addressed in a fine copperplate hand to Mrs. E. G. Waite at "Nevada, Cal." — the Nevada County seat in the heart of California's northern gold mines, known today as Nevada City. This is classic Gold Country express mail: the private company's frank and the government's indicia side by side on the same envelope, exactly as federal law required.
1. Postal Markings & Operational Analysis
The Format: A United States three-cent stamped envelope (a "Nesbitt" entire) on buff wove paper, measuring roughly 5½ x 3¼ inches as shown against the ruler, with the express company's frank printed in green at the upper left. The reverse is plain, with no docketing or backstamp; the flap is open and partially lacking, and the top edge is irregularly opened with loss at the right end of the frank panel.
The Indicia: At upper right is the embossed three-cent Washington device in orange-red, the head facing left inside an oval with THREE in the upper tablet and CENTS in the lower tablet, flanked by chain-and-rosette lathework. This is the 1853–55 Nesbitt three-cent issue, red on buff paper — the stamped envelope that collectors and sale catalogues routinely describe simply as the "3c red Nesbitt entire," the standard carrier for Western express franks of the period.
The Express Frank: The green frank occupies the upper left and reads PAID over Wells, Fargo & Co. in heavy Old English lettering, above a solid panel inscribed OVER OUR CALIFORNIA AND COAST ROUTES. The wording has a direct ancestry in the California express trade: Adams & Company is believed to have been the first express to offer a printed frank on an envelope, in mid-1854, and the Adams design was probably copied by Wells, Fargo & Co. for their own early printed frank
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At Electro Antiques, we are dedicated to rescuing, rediscovering, andrestoring this history of electronics and computing, reviving andpreserving it for future generations.
We also specialize in signs, advertising, and some ephemera.
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