£2,600
REGISTERED MAIL - THE NEWLY DISCOVERED 'SAMUEL BROWNING EXPERIMENT' SPLIT-RING MARK OF SLIGO IN RED; 27 Apr. 1816 E (overall toning, small closed tears & one side-flap removed) sent from Sligo to Dublin (fine & faint strikes of a small double-octagon-boxed black 29 Apr. "F/PAID" d.s. on the front) endorsed "Post Paid 2/6" in red above the address along with a partial red "SLIGO/102" Mileage mark at the foot of the address beside a spectacular matching large red 'Split-ring' "F/7" mark associated with the "Samuel Browning" Experimental Irish Registered Mail system (light crease). We have only recorded three similar covers - but all with black split-ring marks of Kilkenny (from a 'find' in the mid-1980s) - including the 20 Dec. 1811 cover sold in Cavendish's 25 June 1999 auction (lot 1213) for £4,200+BP. This 1816 example does not appear to have been recorded before and was recently discovered totally unremarked in a mixed bundle of covers submitted for this auction; it was spotted by the same Cavendish describer who described the Willcocks cover back in 1999! This is the only recorded Sligo example and the only one known in red. [The full story of Browning and this fascinating experiment - complete with Essays for the split-ring mark - is to be found in Post Office Archives in London and is told in great detail in James Mackay's 1982 Registered Mail of the British Isles, pp.24-30 + 41-18, but he had never seen an example used on cover. Martin Willcocks described his Kilkenny example (one of 3 known examples) as "one of the rarest of GB covers"; what would he have said about this unique red Sligo cover?! [Ex John Lea.] Cross Reference: REGISTERED MAIL
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