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Stanley’s Auction
303
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Philippines – Manila, 1908. Postal stationery card of the Ph…
303
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Philippines – Manila, 1908. Postal stationery card of the Ph…
Estimation 80 € - 150 €
Lot volontaire
Description
Philippines – Manila, 1908.
Postal stationery card of the Philippines under American administration, with 4 centavos imprinted stamp (McKinley effigy), cancelled Manila (NOV 13, 1908), with Anvers (Antwerp) arrival postmark of 16 December 1908, and handwritten ship endorsement "p. S.S. Zafiro" indicating carriage by a named steamship. Violet commercial handstamp "EL ORIENTE – Fábrica de Tabacos – O. Ingenohl – Manila". Addressed to Mr Stanislas Pauwels, 140 Boulevard Léopold, Antwerp (Belgium).
On the reverse, a handwritten message in French, dated Manila, 11 November 1908, in which the writer expresses his gratitude for a congratulatory card on his appointment as Knight of the Order of Leopold, and apologises for the delay, having just returned from the northern provinces of the Philippines where he went through three typhoons and terrible floods. The message is signed Ingenohl — the El Oriente cigar manufactory belonged to Carl Franz Adolph Otto Ingenohl, a German-born industrialist who became a naturalised Belgian citizen, resided in Antwerp and travelled regularly to the Far East to oversee his tobacco plantations and cigar factories in the Philippines and Hong Kong; the Belgian decoration announced in the message is fully consistent with his Belgian nationality and Antwerp connections.
Fate would add a curious twist to this story: Ingenohl's brother, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, commanded the German High Seas Fleet at the outbreak of the First World War — and on that account the American authorities seized the Manila factory in 1917 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, despite Carl's Belgian citizenship. He fought for a decade to recover his property, winning a case before the United States Supreme Court in 1927. The Belgian knighthood so proudly announced on this card in 1908 thus acquires, in hindsight, a poignant historical resonance. A fine example combining postal history, the history of Belgian enterprise in the Far East, and a first-hand testimony by a notable figure of the colonial tobacco trade.
Keywords: philately, marcophily, postal stationery, US administration, McKinley, ship endorsement, S.S. Zafiro, maritime mail, cigar industry, tobacco, Order of Leopold, Antwerp, incoming mail Belgium, Far East.
The descriptions are based on our interpretation of the postmarks and handwritten inscriptions, which are sometimes difficult to decipher; they are provided in good faith and without guarantee.
Crédits photos :
SANCHEZ Hugo
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