Today in Postal History

This colorful cover was posted in the cosmopolitan Pera district of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

The destination was New York City, New York.
The addressee sounds like a member of a firm of Wall Street lawyers (or maybe accountants).
The item was marked as a Decree of Constitution.*
After properly decoding the words, I suspect they were added by a collector identifying the stamps.

The cover has six rather coarse Pera CDS.

The stamps comprise a complete set of the Dec 17, 1908 (Scott 146-150).
There is a 5 para ocher, a 10 para blue green, a 20 para carmine,
a 1 piaster ultramarine, and a 2 piaster gray black.

The issue honored the granting of a Constitution on July 24, 1908, after the Revolution of 1908.
The banderole at the top of the stamp includes the date "324 Temuz 10," the commemorated date.
(I'm sure that's absolutely the first time I ever used 'banderole' in a sentence.)
This is the constitution which effectively ended the Ottoman Empire.
(The revolution also led to the term 'young Turks.')

I suppose that this cover provided a bit of 'grease' for smoothing international legal problems.

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