Session 1 - Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions, LLC

EUROPE AND COLONIES: France241 France, 1870-71, Siege of Paris: Pi geon Post, two ac tual mi cro films of of fi cial dis patches car ried bySteenacker's pi geons, one 30x55mm and hold ing 16 pages of doc u ments, the other 30x22mm; also a con tem po -rary pho to graphic print of a third mi cro film on col lo dion pa per (39x52mm), the last from the “Lafollye” al bum and notflown; also in cluded are two un used slightly dif fer ent forms on which a cor re spon dent could an swer four “yes” or“no” ques tions to be mi cro filmed to be sent into Paris; one of them is pre-franked with an un used 1862 5c Na po leon(Scott 23), Very Fine, a very scarce group. Estimate $750 - 1,000The pigeon post was used to get news of the outside world into Paris during the siege. Homing pigeons werecarried out of Paris on the same balloons that carried the mail. Messages from unoccupied France werecollected, microfilmed (many on a single piece of film) and placed in capsules attached to the pigeons, whichwere then released to fly back to Paris. Once back in Paris the microfilms were projected onto large screens fromwhich they were individually transcribed onto forms similar to telegraph forms, and forwarded to their intendedrecipients. The service began onSeptember 27, 1870 and formally ended on January 31, 1871. During the four months of the pigeon post'sexistence, more than a million messages were carried into Paris by pigeon.P. F. Steenackers was Director-General of Telegraphs and Posts (including pigeons) at Tours, one of the twocities where the pigeons were based (the other being Poitiers). It was Steenacker who saw the value of themicrofilm in this endeavor.242 France, 1870-71, Ballons Montés bal ance, small mis cel la neous group com pris ing three cov ers and acard mailed dur ing the Siege but, due to the length of time needed for de liv ery and to the lack of ballon monté en -dorse ment, ap par ently sent by con ven tional means; first two are from the same cor re spon dence to Vitré, dated 20& 21 Sep and backstamped Vitré, 24 & 21 Oct, re spec tively; 3rd is post marked Pl. de la Bourse, 23 Sep, toDagachon, where it was backstamped 22 Oct; the card was to Boulogne-sur-Mer and is post marked Ministere desFi nances, 10 Oct, and backstamped Boulogne-s-Mer, 17 Nov; also in cluded are two dif fer ent un usedDepeche-Réponse for send ing com mu ni ca tions into Paris, three un used blue ballon monté lettersheets, and twoimperf pro pa ganda la bels urg ing in de pend ence for Al sace-Lorraine, one in French, the other in German. Aninteresting lot. Estimate $250 - 35054 Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions LLC info@kelleherauctions.com Sale 638 - Aug. 19, 2013