Carmarthenshire – Sir Caerfyrddin

A collection of such material can be greatly enhanced by demonstrating the trades which gave rise to the correspondence but this requires a degree of curiosity about what is going on inside the letter, a feature which is still ignored by many collectors and dealers alike. The presence both of iron foundries and of a thriving agricultural sector made it almost inevitable that the town would be celebrated for its farming equipment and the business of Thomas Bright at the Old Foundry gave rise to a substantial volume of commercial correspondence.

The smaller the village the more difficult it is to find illustrative documents but, faced with a pile of mundane looking invoices, it is always worth looking out for businesses which also ran the local post office. The invoice (above) from Daniel Evans shows why the postal context is often overlooked as clearly the trade of a wholesale egg merchant was the prime activity, along with that of grocer, seed, corn and flour merchant. Gorsgoch, meaning Red Bog in Welsh, is about as insignificant as they come and, as the address indicates, came under the office at Llanybyther. The post office in Gorsgoch did not make its first appearance in the Post Office Guide until 1 January 1899 and perhaps one of our readers can narrow down the date of opening still further. The ephemera dealer attached no importance whatsoever to the activity of sub-postmaster and it is easy to see why that might be. But we all know better and all that is needed now is a postmark from its early days to complete a page with a story.