Description:

1848 lengthy entire letter headed "Waranooke - River Richardson/31 Dec 1848" & signed "Henry Nicoll" to England, prepaid with a light but largely fine strike of the 'GEELONG/JANY 1/1849.' provisional handstamp in red on the reverse (unfortunately overstruck with the London transit b/s also in red), rated "3" in red for a single shipletter & "8" in black payable by the recipient of an inwards shipletter. A great rarity. Ex Tony Rigo de Righi (1982) & Brian Peace.

The early datestamps had the year fixed, requiring that they be returned to Melbourne each December to have the year changed. In the absence of a datestamp, most offices used manuscript endorsements. The postmaster at Geelong resorted to more imaginative expedients. Only one other example of this datestamp is recorded - Ex Hugh Freeman & Michael Silvasich - and it is struck in black: that item sold at the Prestige auction of 22/4/2006 for $6900.

The writer states "...the beer & spirits are very bad in this country but we have good wines...have been washing some skin wool the process of which is to let the skins lye in a heap wetted until they decompose when the wool comes off...in March we shall have 1500 lambs to shear..." Wooroonook is 13km W of Charlton on the Richardson River. This item was apparently carried privately to Geelong.