Postal History of the Western Overland Routes

Offered by Richard Frajola, LLC
 

13 August 2018 Update - The sale is over and almost all lots have been sold. The few remaining are on page is here.

29 July Update - Reduced Prices - This sale shows that the market is certainly strong for high quality and rare postal history items that are fresh to the marketplace. As the sale has been very well received with 70% of the material sold in the first two weeks ($772,100 of the original $1,096,450 in retail prices), I have decided to reduce prices on remaining material by an average of 20% by re-pricing everything today.


The sale - I am pleased to offer this important group of letters and covers illustrating the several overland mail routes that connected East and West during the critically important period between 1849 and 1869. Most items are from the collection formed by Steve Walske. The sale is divided into sections as listed linked below.

Several of the items on offer are "old friends" that have been owned by clients spanning the entire period of my involvement with philately. In particular, several of the key items were previously owned by Floyd Risvold. Many of the covers and letters are discussed and illustrated in the Walske and Frajola book "Mails of the Westward Expansion, 1803 to 1861" (MWE) and figure numbers are listed in items descriptions. The book is available in PDF format, here. Chapter PDF files are linked from each section of the sale.

Ordering Information - Items that have been sold will be marked as such but prices will remain online as a value guide and reference. Please email me to confirm availability and order by stock number. See Terms and Conditions here.
 

A searchable PDF file of the sale is here
(please note that sold items will not be updated on the PDF file)
 

Table of Contents

Section 1. Routes between Utah and Missouri, 1849 to 1861

Section 2. Routes between California and Utah, 1851 to 1861

Section 3. Santa Fe Trail, 1851 to 1864

Section 4. The "Jackass" Route, Ft. Yuma / Texas, 1855 to 1860

Section 5. The Southern "Butterfield" Route, 1858 to 1861

Section 6. The "Via Stockton" Route, 1859

Section 7. The Colorado Routes, 1858 to 1861

Section 8. The Trans-continental Pony Express

Section 9. The Virginia City Pony Express

Section 10. The "Daily Mail" Route, 1861 to 1869

Section 11. The Idaho & Montana Routes

Section 12. The Trans-Continental Railroad, 1869