Description
Taxed French post office Holyland mail + discovery: 27 Aug 1906 postmarked picture postcard (Jerusalem - Mosque of Omar; Hermann Striemann) with 25 Aug. dated message numbering 5 words, sent from JERUSALEM to DRESDEN Germany & franked 5c for the printed matter rate (as bearing 5 words or less); likely deposited into a letter box and subsequently postmarked - but also marked for postage dues with triangular French T taxe mark, as the post office determined that the rate which should have been paid was 10c for an overseas postcard rather than 5c as printed matter & manuscript wrote "10" in large green crayon on the back as the tax for twice the deficient 5c postage.
Here a very rare instance of mail taxed in the Holyland + first recorded instance of the taxe mark used in Jerusalem; Steichele only records such triangular T taxe marks for Jaffa and Haifa - none for Jerusalem (see enclosed image with taxe marks of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and Beirut). Observed 5c franked postcards sent abroad through the French post office (in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine) show that these were almost always endorsed "imprime" (printed matter) - here not endorsed as such & likely the reason why it was taxed.
