Today in Postal History
This picture postal card was sent from Handa-Machi.
The term Machi is one used to refer to towns
(as opposed to cities and villages) as a basic municipality.
Handa is a small town about 45 km south of the center of
Nagoya on Chita-Wan (bay).
Nagoya is west of Tokyo toward Osaka on the Island of Honshu.
The postal card is imprinted with a 6s carmine indicia
required to meet the U.P.U. rate for international usage.
The card has a nice strike of a CDS dated 3 . 6 . 1.
The 3 refers to the third year of the Showa reign of Emperor Hirohito.
The reign started on December 25, 1925.
The cover was addressed to Luxembourg.
There are no transit marks.
The sender requested service via Siberia which was the
standard route from
Japan to European addresses after the Trans Siberian Railway was
completed.
The illustration on the card is a an attractive black and
white photo of a small boat regatta.
The boats appear to be small catboats with loose gaff rigs.
I am not sure about the message but it appears that the
sender is
currently in Handa but expects to move shortly to Yamagata.
I think he was doing some business with small pharmacies.
That's extrapolated far beyond the limit of my pidgin French.
Any additions, anyone?
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