Transvaal registered parcel label and postal rates query
The attached scans show a "Kodak Film Case" - a sewn soft card wallet used by a photographic processor, J Barnett & Co., in central Johannesburg, to send photographs to Miss ?Wharford in Klerksdorp in February 1910. The wallet was held together by thin parcel string, an inland parcel label was completed and stuck onto the back of the wallet, and the resulting parcel was sent by registered mail at a cost of 4d.
The label is the first that I've seen of this type; but evidently, from the print details at the bottom left corner, from a print run of 200,000 labels ordered in May 1909 - a very clear indication of the poor survival of parcel labels.
What's puzzling - and I would be grateful for any information or comments - is the postal rate. The wallet carries a single 4d stamp, and there's no sign at all that any stamp has fallen off. However the Transvaal registration rate was 4d - a rate that had been in force since before the Boer War. It seems unlikely that no postage was paid; was there perhaps a concessionary registration rate for this kind of parcel?
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I am sorry but I cannot add anything to what you already know about this. However, I wonder if like a registered letter envelop the label had to be purchased for a fee. There is a bit of red showing to the right of the stamp. However, no space appears to have been allocated there for a stamp to be affixed. I think it unlikely that the label's value will be shown beneath the stamp ie. don't soak it off!
I find this a very attractive item, both philatelically and photographically. My wife's grandfather was an ardent amateur photographer from whom we inherited a mass of this period's photographic memorabilia, as well as a magic lantern that he built himself. I have quite a lot of similar material but all from the UK. I love the Art Nouveau design and also the postmark cancelling the Transvaal 4d stamp. Was this mark a common parcel stamp? A quick look in Transvaal Philately (Mathews, et al) proved fruitles.