Early dates on 1898 pictorial envelopes

[bill]

Regarding this set of 12 attractive views on envelopes (6 of 2d and 6 of 2½d),
what can be said about early dates of use? A little over 300 of each were made
and issued early in 1898. No doubt, some of them were kept as souvenirs, yet
some were used for postage.

Earliest dates would be of great interest.

[David McNamee]

2d envelope First Day of Use 3 JAN 1898 Rod Perry sale 5 JUN 1990 Lot #267. "Mount Wellington in Winter"
2d envelope First Day of Use 3 JAN 1898 Malcolm Groom collection "On the North Esk Near Launceston"
2d envelope CTO 4 JAN 1898 Gary Watson sale 16 OCT 1989 Lot #96 (full set)

2½d envelope First Day of Use 3 JAN 1898 Malcolm Groom collection "Government House Hobart"
2½d envelope CTO 4 JAN 1898 Gary Watson sale 16 OCT 1989 Lot #96 (set, missing "Government House Hobart")
2½d envelope 5 JAN 1898 Malcolm Groom collection "Lake Sorell from the Diamond Beach"

Registered (only recorded) 2½d envelope 28 FEB 1898 David McNamee collection "Mount King William"

Harmer's Sale of A.R.W. Gregory collection 4-5 DEC 1979 claims a CTO of the 2d envelope dated 4 DEC 1897 -- I have my doubts.

[Ross Ewington]

Just so folks know what this topic is about, here's a picture of one ...
[attachment=2]used pictorial envelope.jpg[/attachment]
Sold by Prestige Philately in auction #123 (September 2nd, 2006)
[attachment=0]description 1898 envelope.jpg[/attachment]
Link to complete auction catalog: http://www.prestigephilately.com/catalo ... ionnum=123

...and I can't resist adding this image of a proof of the Mt Wellington view envelope
[attachment=1]1898 Mt Wellington envelope proof.jpg[/attachment]

[bill]

On checking PfromA last night, I found an article on these envelopes
(Sep 2005 issue). I had overlooked that I had found an old article in
Stamp Collectors Fortnightly (8 January 1898) in which the writer had
been shown a set of these envelopes in England. They were released
to the public on 1 January 1898 in Hobart, apparently.

Using the Unix command 'cal 1 1898' on a PC shows that 3 January 1898
was a Monday so the New Years Day 1898 would have been a Saturday.
Is it reasonable to suppose that the post office would have been open
for a couple of hours on 1 January 1898??

For the sake of interest, here is an example used in Germany(!!!) with
a 5 pfennig Germania design (Deutsches Reich) used at Dresden. The
backstamp is dated 20.8.06 at Dresden.

EnvelopeGermanStamp.JPG (64.05 KiB) Viewed 1980 times