Picture cards

It is not very often that I come across postcards from before 1900 depicting a post office. Unfortunately, no post office can be recognized on the card I describe below, but I do know that from June 1, 1895, a post and delivery office was located in the railway station, depicted in the upper right of the card. It is not a photograph but a drawing, just like the other four characteristic faces of Nijmegen and the surrounding area. All buildings shown in the image of the station and the Spoorstraat area have since disappeared. On another card, the old station building can be seen in all its splendor. The image was taken from the garden of the Oranjehotel, which also no longer exists. I do not know in which part the post office was housed. The post office was also used as a dispatch office for the receipt and dispatch of mail and parcels via the railway network. This postcard was produced by Uitgeverij AA vd Borg in Nijmegen and dates from after 1900. The Oranjehotel no longer exists either. The station building, built in 1892 to a design by architect CH Peters, was struck by two direct hits during the American bombing on February 22, 1944, which completely destroyed the building. It was half past one in the afternoon when this happened. Back to the first postcard. In addition to the station building, this card shows a number of sights characteristic of the city and its surroundings. Also a part of Beek near Nijmegen. The map was probably for sale at a hotel in that small town. A place popular with holidaymakers because of its beautiful surroundings, as the advertising stamp also indicates. Posted in Beek near Nijmegen, judging by the imprint of the auxiliary post office stamp. This stamp, of the so-called small round type, was issued to the post office on October 29, 1894, together with an office name stamp. The name is not stated entirely correctly on the small round stamp, as the left bracket (before the letter N of Nijmegen) should have stood before the word 'bij', just as with the name stamp. The card was stamped on October 1, 1898, between 12 and 8 o'clock, so probably early in the morning. The addressee lived in Haarlem, where the card was stamped on the same day with the small circular Haarlem stamp, between 4 and 5 in the afternoon. The card was delivered by a postman carrying the number 24. This postman had probably entered service in July 1884, as only 23 delivery stamps had been issued up to that point. In Haarlem, there were six mail deliveries per day until about 1894. This could be seen from the letter mounted on the delivery stamp, A through F. In 1894, the number of deliveries per day was increased by a seventh delivery! To this end, the letter G was issued to the deliverers. But why is there no letter in the impression of deliverer 24? Had he not received it yet? Or had a letter gone missing? These are puzzles that keep me occupied. And sometimes a solution comes from an unexpected angle, and I am satisfied again. Stamp collecting is more than just collecting stamps.