Rare - properly fully handled registered mail in the interim period: 2-4 May 1948 period postmarked commercial cover on imprinted lawyer's office postal stationary, sent from PETACH TIKVA to KFAR SAVA, franked 25 mils for the period postage rate (10m domestic letter + 15m registry fee) using 3x interim stamps & tied by 2x strikes of the local dateless interim postmark on front + 2x strikes on back; affixed with registry label 0682;
backstamped 4 May 1948
REGISTERED TEL AVIV transit with oval Mandate postmark &
backstamped next day 5 May arrival using Mandate double-ring postmark.
This is surprisingly rare interim period postal history:as per research on interim and early Israel registered mail conducted by this cataloguer and published in "
JerusalemStamps Bulletin #2",
during the interim period there was no real registered mail and virtually none is observed with requisite transit or even arrival postmarks; indeed registered mail service was not offered at smaller locales and all the registered mail from small settlements is entirely philatelic, likely obtained by way of bribing postal clerks to create 'mock ups' of ordinary handled mail bearing registered mail postage and labels but without proper transit and arrival markings - this is especially evident
from 6 May onwards when the head post offices in Haifa and Tel Aviv came under the control of the interim postal service and suddently transit markings at the registry division
cease to appear on mail.
The only stage where mail could have been (and was) fully handled as registered mail was in the period of 2-5 May, when the
interim postal administration received control over all post offices except the head post offices, which remained under Mandate control until the 6th - and then mail was still transited through the registry divisions of the Mandate administered HPO's and arrival-stamped as on this cover (by an interim controlled post office), but
such fully postally marked mail in the interim period is rare. Here, the Kfar Sava post office like some others, retained its Mandate issued datestamps to postmark the arrival of registered mail (other post offices like the one in Ramat Gan arrival-stamped mail using the interim postmark).
