Austrian DDSG P.O. in Jaffa 1840 (May 15): Entire letter from Jaffa to the French Consul in Beirut, struck by a decent strike of extremely
Austrian DDSG P.O. in Jaffa 1840 (May 15): Entire letter from Jaffa to the French Consul in Beirut, struck by a decent strike of extremely rare double-circle "D.D.S.G. / JAFFA / P.P." handstamp in black, applied on the DDSG shipping line Smyrna - Beirut - Alexandria, slit disinfected. Cert. Nakri (2002) Note: The DDSG was founded in 1829 and was originally thought to provide transport and postal services on the Danube and some of its tributary rivers such as Tisza and Save. However, already in the 1830s it extended its services far beyond that river into the Black Sea and even into the Marmara and Aegean Seas. At the end of this decade postal services from Beirut and Jaffa were offered. Keith Tranmer mentions in his treatise on the Austrian Post Offices abroad, part 8 (1976) on page 21 that the creation of a Constantinople - Beirut - Alexandria line of the DDSG was decided in 1838 but no material had been recorded. With a first journey on 1 June 1839, the vessel ‘Seri Pervas’ was running the line Smyrna - Chios - Cos - Rhodes - Larnaca down to Alexandretta, from August 1839 further via Beirut & Jaffa south to Alexandria. Already in July 1840 during the Egyptian - Ottoman War and finally with a severe accident of the 'Seri Pervas' the history of this line found its end. DDSG services in the Eastern Mediterranean in general had been short lived, in 1845 all DDSG Agencies outside the Danube (with just Odessa as the exception) were taken over by the Austrian Lloyd, with the two companies dividing 'the world of shipmail' between them. The present cover is one of two recorded with a DDSG JAFFA handstamp, both from the same correspondence to the French Consul in Beirut, the other written on 2 July 1840. Both came to the market circa 1997 and were therefore unknown to Müller in his monograph dealing with Austrian pre-stamp mail (1960) and its two supplements, and as already mentioned also in Tranmer - Austrian Post Offices Abroad, part 8 (1976). The present JAFFA cover shows the earliest postmark recorded from any postal service used in Jaffa, much earlier than any French or Russian service available. In addition it is the earliest usage in the Holy Land at all, if one takes into account the material in private hands only. Reference: Displayed and discussed by Norman J. Collins in his article 'A Danube Steam Navigation Company Postmark for Jaffa -1840' in HLPH Nos. 69-72 (1997) where he describes this item as 'the most important discovery and one of the major rarities of the Holy Land'. Provenance: Christoph Gärtner sale 17 (March 2011), lot 2771.
