Mystery of the 1902 envelope

THE mystery envelope

IT COST only four old pennies to send to Oldham, but over a century later an envelope is worth almost £300 — thanks to a criminal.

The registered envelope was sent to Oldham on July 2, 1902, from Cyprus.

But on the way to Oldham someone opened the envelope and removed or tried to remove its contents.

And that makes it far more valuable — and collectable.

For in the bottom left hand corner of the envelope are two “Found Open and Officially Sealed” labels.

Without these labels the envelope — which is expected to fetch up to £300 at an auction at Spink in London on February 24 — would be worth only a few pounds.

Dominic Savastano, a stamp expert at the auctioneers, said: “In stamp collecting, the out-of-the-ordinary is always interesting.

“Here we have a fairly ordinary envelope registered from Cyprus to England in 1902, which somehow was opened in transit and officially sealed. Did the person who illegally opened the envelope hope to find cash in it.”

What was inside, why it was sent registered and who sent it to Oldham remains a mystery. It cost four old pennies to send — in 1902, the cost of two pints of beer.

The envelope is addressed to John C. North Esq, 35 James Terrace, Spring Street, Oldham. John Collier North, then 38, was a Yorkshire-born, engineer and surveyor. He and his wife, Clara, had two daughters, Clara Mabel (8) and six-year-old Muriel Irene.

The Norths were sufficiently well-off to be able to afford a live-in servant, Harriet Brewer.

James Terrace, off Spring Street, was an affluent area in Edwardian times. The Norths’s neighbours included a bank manager, mill manager and solicitor.

The Norths eventually left Oldham and returned to their native Yorkshire, where Mr North became a director and manager of a cotton spinning works in Huddersfield.

For some unexplained reason he never destroyed the registered envelope he received in Oldham on that summer’s day in 1902. And ever since its value has been steadily rising.