Postal Routes through Paris

1838–1856

The carriage of mail was in the beginning the Kings post carried by horsemen, later as the roads were extended and improved mail was carried by the mail post cart and the mail coach which also carried passengers. These were privately owned but they received concessions from the post office, by 1833 there were almost 38000 kilometers of post roads. France was late with building its Railways, work on the Paris-Toulouse railway began in 1838. The first mail carried partly by train and mail coach was from Valenciennes Tours and Le Havre in 1847. In 1838 a series of primary postal routes for mail to or through Paris were established, each with its numbered postmark. These were applied at the central post bureau Paris.

 The first period of these marks was from November 1838 to March 1848 with 17 numbered routes,

 The second period was from March 1848 to May 1851 there were 18 numbered routes, and 4 special courier post marks were issued.

 The third period was from April 1852 to May 1856 there were now 20 numbered routes.

 These post marks were used as back stamp, in either black or blue except for route 17 which also used in red to distinguish the time of sorting. Over the period that these route numbers were in use a number of these numbers were changed to other destinations mainly because of the growth of the railway system.

I started this Postal History-collection while finishing the Paris Star-collection. My goal is to cover all the postal routes through Paris. My final target is 4-5 frames, around 40 A3 exhibition pages and it will be ready for exhibitions in 2025. 

I have acquired quite a lot of materials during the last four years, and today 27.3.2024, I have started to create the exhibition pages. I will add them here one by one until the collection is ready!