Description
1948 War of Independence era couriered Consulate mail: cover on imprinted postal stationary of the Consulate of Switzerland in JERUSALEM, addressed to TEL AVIV - couriered to Tel Aviv and posted there on 18 Feb 1948; franked 10 mils for the domestic letter postage rate and entered into a letter box, whereupon tied by the single circle postmark of the sorting office once the box was cleared. In this period postal service in Jerusalem functioned inconsistently, between the periodic closures of the General Post Office and military conflict within the city - hence this cover like others in this period was couriered out and posted elsewhere. Here, the first observed instance of this practice with consular mail. Slit open at left. Note: as per the stamp's blind perforations, the general appearance of its perimeter & its thin, flat paper, based on new research by this cataloguer (soon to be published in "JerusalemStamps Bulletin"), the frank is likely a machine-vended coil stamp of a type presently undocumented in the specialist philatelic literature.
