FEPA Medal for Exceptional Study and Research 2023
Colin Tabeart (Great Britain)
for “British Long Distance Mail Packets”, Volume 2
This detailed study shows how packet mails between the United Kingdom and northern Europe (principally the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden) travelled during the final years of the sailing packets era, and how such letters were rated. The focus is on enabling the mode of transport to be determined rather than on postal markings that have largely been covered in other works. With this book a collector should be able to determine by what route a letter travelled, how it was rated, and in most cases what ship or ships carried the mail.
Of particular importance is meticulous research into primary sources, in this case the newspaper archives of the British Library, the Rotterdamsche Courant and the Börsen Halle of Hamburg, that has produced a comprehensive data set on which ships travelled where and on what date. The result is an invaluable reference work for postal historians that follows the pattern set by the author in previous publications listing maritime links between the United Kingdom and other parts of the world in the early and mid-19th century.
