Mail robbery in military conflicts between 1745-1945
by Dr. Steven J. Berlin
This presentation, made as part of BALPEX, 2021, and shared with MPHS in a Zoom seminar, covers and illustrates the subject of mail robberies. Note that:
- Mail Robbery postal history is very scarce, if not rare. Most of these postal history covers have been destroyed either by the robber or in the acts of war.
- Mail robbery is usually performed for the theft of valuables and/or during the act of war for intelligent information.
- Mail robberies during the 18 th and 19 th centuries were often punished by death. Perhaps that is why there are so few robberies recorded during these times
- The U.S. Postal Museum in a previous exhibit indicated that there were as many as 3,000 mail robberies a year in the United States, with only 10% of the robbers being prosecuted.
This presentation is the creation and property of the author, but is presented for the free use of members of the Military Postal History Society and the public for educational purposes.
This presentation is currently available on this website in PDF, web, and text formats:
- Mail Robbery Presentation as a Searchable PDF File (6 megabytes)
- Mail Robbery Presentation as a Web Page
- Mail Robbery Presentation as a Kindle (tm) Book (Kindle file, 4 megabytes)
- Mail Robbery Presentation as an EPUB Book (EPUB file, 2 megabytes)