By Ed and Jean Siskin The franking privilege is the right to send and or receive mail free from postage. The word frank comes from the Latin via French and Middle English and means free. Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary of 1755 defines Frank as “A letter which pays no postage” and To Frank as “To exempt letters from postage.”

By Jim Walker

Early air mail service in the New York area used an assortment of air fields on Long Island. Hazlehurst Field was the one in use at the commencement of Transcontinental Air Mail Service in 1924 and was deemed inadequate due to smoke from city industries and ocean fog.

By Robert G. Rose

Have you ever fantasized, as have I, of forming a collection of United States classic stamps used on covers from New Jersey? If so, the task to put such a collection together would be a real challenge. For unlike its neighboring states with cities such as Boston, New York and Philadelphia, where substantial commercial correspondences were preserved to the later benefit of collectors, there have been no major “finds” of covers from New Jersey bearing postage stamps from the first issue in 1847 and the second issue of 1851-56.

By Ed & Jean Siskin

In the Oct-Nov 1988 issue of La Posta, Tom Clarke wrote an article about a wonderful Revolutionary War cover he had. Dated February 16, 1777, from New Brunswick, New Jersey, it was from a British officer to his brother, the Earl of Lauderdale in Edinburgh, Scotland and discussed, among other things, the recent Battle of Trenton. Tom kindly let me acquire it and for many years it remained one of my favorite covers. Now that it’s moving on to a new owner, it seems appropriate to provide additional documentation of this gem.

By Richard Micchelli

If you were to conduct a detailed review of the 190 Civil War patriotic covers illustrated in NJPH whole nos. issues 100 and 117, or the online exhibit of covers shown at NOJEX, you can begin to see the emergence of some interesting patterns among the covers. An obvious pattern is that there are several different correspondences represented in the illustrated covers.