CSA 12f, 10¢ blue officially perforated 12/ ½ tied by MOBILE AL  NOV 28 [1863] double-circle cancel on cover SMUGGLED out of New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama. From there mailed to Joseph Reynès, Care S.M. Darby, Esq., Box 129, Augusta, Ga., 2008 APS Certificate only addressing the genuineness of the stamp. Rare smuggled cover used with sarce perforated issue. $2,500. Listed in both Miscellaneous-1 and CSA 12 Covers, Section 3.

The Reynès correspondence is well-known among serious students. During the Federal occupation of New Orleans from May 1862 to the end of the war, there were many residents of the city who wished to continue corresponding with family and associates in the Confederate States. To circumvent the Federal post office, letters were smuggled out of New Orleans to Mobile where the Louisiana Relief Committee was situated. The Louisiana Relief Committee was in operation from June of 1863 until early September of 1864. Joseph Reynès was a member of a prominent Creole family in New Orleans who held various public positions. The Provost Marshal in the Parish of Orleans ordered Celestine Reynès and Joseph Reynès, registered enemies of the United States, to leave the Parish in 1863.