Worldwide Stamps and Postal History

S.S "Empress of Ireland". 1914 (May 26) Cover from Quebec to London, the stamp washed off, backstamped at the Ottawa Dead Letter Office (Sep. 14) and encdorsed "M.O for 67 cents, MOB 1 Oct. 1914", enclosed within an Ottawa DLO ambulance envelope with a 2c stamp from another wreck cover applied, the stamp tied by an Ottawa (Dec. 29) machine, the ambulance envelope and enclosed wreck cover both handstamped violet "Recovered by divers from wreck of S.S Empress of Ireland". Also a picture postcard of the ship. The Canadian Pacific Railway Co. steamer "Empress of Ireland" left Quebec for Liverpool with 1,467 passengers and crew. On the night of 28/29 May she encountered fog in the St. Lawrence River 20 miles from Rimouski, put her engines astern and signalled this, but was then struck by the Norwegian collier "Storstadt", tearing a huge hole in her side flooding the boiler rooms. The liner put out an SOS and managed to launch four boats, but sank within 15 minutes with the loss of over 1,000 lives. Some mail was salvaged by divers and processed over several months at Ottawa, the above cover being salvaged nearly four months after the wreck but then not forwarded from Ottawa for a further 31⁄2 months. A fine cover with an ambulance envelope and an unusually clear cachet. (3). Photo on Page 53.
Suggested price: £ 300-400