NEW YORK (AP) – A rare envelope postmarked on the first day of the Pony Express has sold for $460,000 in a public auction in New York.

The envelope was among 63 Pony Express items sold on Saturday by Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries.

It’s one of three known surviving covers postmarked April 3, 1860, the day the service began carrying mail by horseback across the continental U.S.

The collection of stamps and envelopes was owned by 88-year-old Thurston Twigg-Smith, the publisher of The Honolulu Advertiser in Hawaii from 1961 to 1993.

The entire collection sold for $4 million.

The Pony Express lasted 19 months, shuttling mail 1,900 miles between Missouri and California. It became obsolete with the first transcontinental telegraph in October 1861.

__

On The Net: http://www.siegelauctions.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-12-05-09 2045EST

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE