Image: Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Silk Road Letter, 1390.
This is the oldest paper letter in the National Philatelic Collection. It discusses prices of luxury fabrics and spices such as cinnamon and pepper. Mailed by a Venetian merchant in Damascus on November 24, 1390, it was carried by courier to Beirut, where it boarded a Venetian galley. It arrived in Venice on December 26, having traveled 1,650 miles in one month.
