Description
Nahariya 1st day/last day interim mail Discovery - 7th slogan + Haifa postmark: 7 May 1948 postmarked commercial cover addressed to bank in HAIFA & franked 20m using a 1st issue red local Emergency Post stamp as the fee for submitting a letter through the emergency service via sea; tied by the 7th slogan postmark here serving as a cancellation device.
According to the specialist literature (Shimony-Karpovsky-Aloni etc.), as of 6 May the interim postal service began operation in NAHARIYA and mail would then be posted there rather than Haifa as done till then - franked for the actual postal service (i.e. here 10m for domestic letter) using interim franks & cancelled by the newly received interim postmark: here the cover was franked 20m using a Mandate pictorial stamp (likely for 10m base letter + 6m additional weight, with 4m left over) & postmarked in HAIFA on 9 May at the head post office using the Mandate double ring postmark on it's last day of use prior to the receipt of the "split ovals" interim postmark. Slit open at top. Unusual postal handling undocumented until now; 1st known case posted in Haifa after 5 May.
In light of a press report from Sunday 9 May 1948, entitled "Connection with Nahariya" (in HaMashkif newspaper p.4) and another observed 7 May postmarked cover (Mandate) franked & dispatched at Nahariya (TPHTPIv2p2 p.42 figure 1-37) - as I have not seen a 6 May interim postmarked cover from Nahariya - I propose that the interim mail service may have started on Friday the 7th and been first reported on Sunday the 9th, and that the cover offered here was submitted for mailing prior to the introduction of the local interim postmark sometime later that day.
