Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
My latest notable acquisition: Jamaica Scott 75-87 in mint condition (except for #83 — a nice mint copy of that stamp should arrive soon from a dealer in Spain):
I've been trying to complete this set in both used and mint condition for several years, buying single copies of stamps as I found them, but a couple of weeks ago I found this set in the APS Stamp Store. The difficult stamp is the 10-shilling King George V "Supreme Lord":
"Supreme Lord" seems so...colonial! Well, Jamaica was a colony, no question about that. My primary interest in the set of stamps is this "sub-set":
• The 1 1/2 pence stamp, commemorating the embarkation for Europe of the Jamaica contingent of the British West Indies Regiment:
• The 2 1/2 pence stamp, commemorating the return of the contingent from Europe:
The British West Indies Regiment was composed of volunteers from all walks of life from. On their passage to Europe, one ship was diverted to Halifax because of the danger of German U-boats; as a result of inadequate equipment, some 600 men suffered from exposure and frostbite, 106 men required amputations, and at least five men died.
During the war, most men of the Regiment serving in Europe were denied roles in combat, and instead performed basic labour, including the grisly work of burial details. They also suffered from severe weather conditions, frostbite, measles and mumps. In the Middle East, however, the BWIR was sent into combat and performed heroically, winning several medals and earning other commendations.
After the war, survivors of the BWIR were sent to Taranto, Italy, where they waited, and waited, for demobilization. While they waited, they were denied a pay raise that was given to white troops, and were required to do menial labour, including cleaning the latrines of white troops. They rioted in frustration, attacking their white officers. Several men were courtmartialed, and one was executed.
When the last of the BWIR troops were repatriated in September, 1919, they were accompanied by three British cruisers in order to prevent unrest once the ships docked at ports in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad. Officials feared that the soldiers, well-trained and now more politically aware, could create havoc for the status quo under which colonial life was governed.
Of the 10,000 volunteers from Jamaica, more than 1,000 never returned.
Bob
P.S. — Note for collectors who like to make their own album pages: I made this page using Apple's Pages word processing program. The fancy corner decorations came from a web site that offers a variety of free graphics.
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Nicely done, Bob — the purchase, the page design and the write-up. A very nice looking set.
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The outrageous title "Supreme Lord", together with your reference to the disgraceful way in which these men were treated, is a salutary reminder of how things were a hundred years ago. You'd like to think people's attitudes have changed for the better since then, and they have, a bit, but nowhere near enough.
These colonial stamps are beautifully produced, and mask so much.
I notice you prefer the white mounts to the black ones I use - I agree they are effective, not least because the minor variations in the cut are far less visible. Too late for me to change, alas!
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I like the image of the watermark that you included. The whole page is very well done. Thanks for posting it!
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interesting to me seeing the number of men: "regiment" means different things, but I assumed a more traditional size of 1,000 to 1,500 men, not 10,000, which is traditionally more the size of a division. There are several huge American regiments: the Armored Cavalry regiments, often equivalent to an American division.
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I should also add that we don't need to go back 100 years to see this kind of discrimination and segregation; the beginning of the Koren war will do nicely. And, of course, the irony of segregated units in federal service in the war that was intended, in part, to secure their freedom
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Very nice page Bob! Yours is the type of album that once sold would be kept intact instead of the stamps being harvested and the album tossed! It adds so much to the stamps.
"Officials feared that the soldiers, well-trained and now more politically aware, could create havoc for the status quo under which colonial life was governed."
In view of the above quote, the way things have played out in history I wouldn't have been surprised if you said the escorting British cruisers sank the boat the unit was on in the middle of the ocean with no survivors, to protect their colony!
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Thanks to everyone for their compliments. That's the first album page I've done in a very long time, and the first I've ever done for Jamaican stamps. Usually I'm working on web pages or, lately, on writing a very long non-philatelic article about being wounded in Vietnam. But I enjoyed working on that album page. Maybe there are more in my future!
About the racism experienced by the West Indies soldiers: None of us should be surprised, of course, by the racial discrimination. When I was in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1960s, I lived with, worked with, and got along well with Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipinos, blacks, and even an Inuit. If there was any institutional racism, it wasn't very evident. I witnessed only one racist incident. A friend of mine, a black hospital corpsman, was told by a black shore patrol (Navy cop) that he'd be arrested if he didn't leave the restaurant where he and I and another white friend were having supper. My white friend and I, according to the shore patrolman, were "honkies".
@Guthrum, who said,
"I notice you prefer the white mounts to the black ones I use - I agree they are effective, not least because the minor variations in the cut are far less visible. Too late for me to change, alas!"
Don't assume that what you see is what I are! I go back and forth on mounts. In fact, usually I use black ones, I thought the clear mounts would emphasize those beautiful designs.
@David, who said,
"Interesting to me seeing the number of men: "regiment" means different things, but I assumed a more traditional size of 1,000 to 1,500 men, not 10,000... ."
As a military and combat veteran, I can only say, well, that I am mostly baffled by military organization, which of course is an oxymoron. I never have been able to fully grasp U.S. Marine Corps organization. I was just sailor who had been seconded to the Marines, and I went where they said to go and did what they said to do. This Wikipedia article about regiments sheds some light on the subject.
Bob
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"About the racism experienced by the West Indies soldiers: None of us should be surprised, of course, by the racial discrimination. When I was in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1960s, I lived with, worked with, and got along well with Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipinos, blacks, and even an Inuit. If there was any institutional racism, it wasn't very evident. "
I grew up in the military, being the son of a US Army officer during the same time period. I was fairly free of prejudice because of the integration of my environment. As you mentioned, my friends were from all races, and since my dad was attached to NATO, different countries as well.
When we lived in Izmir, Turkey the only other American family in our neighborhood was a black Air Force officer and his family. They lived across the hall from us so our families did a lot of things together and the two girls were our American friends. We never thought of them as black, only as the other Americans!
The first time I really noticed, was when I was 14 and we returned to the USA. We bought a house in the NJ suburbs in anticipation of my father's retirement, the first time we ever owned a house. I started in a catholic high school and I immediately noticed there were only white people in school and the neighborhood. I thought that was rather odd!
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Further to the Jamaica stamps:
Several values of the 1919-1921 set of stamps was re-issued in 1922-1923, with some new values and designs, and Watermark #4 (Multiple Crown and Script "CA") rather than Watermark #3 (Multiple Crown and "CA"). One of the re-issued stamps was Scott #79, re-issued as #92. That's the stamp commemorating the return of the Jamaican soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment to Jamaica in 1919.
Scott notes one change in the re-issued stamp, in the flag at the left centre of the frame. In the 1921 version, the flag has a broad white stripe below a coloured stripe; in the 1922 version, the broad white stripe appears above the coloured stripe. I have eight copies of #92, but only one of #79, reflecting the relative scarcity of the first issue compared to the second; that scarcity is reflected in the stamps' catalogue values.
The colour my copies of #92 vary quite a lot; the mint copy I have could qualify as an example of a different shade, and perhaps does in other catalogues, but perhaps the plate was under-inked when it was printed.
Both #79 and #92 were printed in two colours, blue and dark blue according to Scott, but the difference between the two colours is quite subtle, especially on some individual copes such as the example of #92 shown below. Because the stamp was printed in two colours, each sheet of stamps required two printing plates and two passes through the printing press. As is common with such two-colour stamps, the two plates were not always registered properly, resulting in the frame and the vignette being misaligned in relation to each other, a problem which is evident in my mint copies of #s 79 and 92. Note that the vignette of the stamp, containing the images of the ship, buildings, men, and a truck is shifted slightly higher in #92 than in #79 — a mast on the ship almost touches the frame in #92, and the words "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919" have no background colour.
Notice that the vignette of engraving of stamp #79 runs into the words "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919". I wondered whether the vignette was printed before or after the border was printed, so I scanned the the text at very high resolution:
It certainly looks to me like the vignette was printed after the border was printed; if "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919" had been printed after the vignette was printed, the darker ink of the vignette would have been covered by the lighter blue of the letters. Instead, the dark lines running left to right through the letters seem mostly continuous. Your thoughts?
"Flyspeck" collecting doesn't normally interest me very much, but this stamp intrigues me more than the others in the set, so I focussed on it.
Finally, in reference to earlier comments in this thread about racism, the Scott catalogue notes that a 6p stamp depicting the end of slavery in Jamaica delivered to Jamaica as part of this set, but was never issued. Hmmmm..... Could that have been a political decision? That apparently explains why the original set of stamps doesn't include a 6p value, and why the re-issued set does, a very handsome stamp picturing Port Royal, :
In 1692, Jamaica suffered a huge earthquake. That's a fascinating story, an object lesson which residents of Richmond and Delta, British Columbia, south of Vancouver, should take to heart. Read about it in the Wikipedia article about Port Royal.
Bob
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Gorgeous stamps and nice page design Bob.
Re:
"P.S. — Note for collectors who like to make their own album pages: I made this page using Apple's Pages word processing program. The fancy corner decorations came from a web site that offers a variety of free graphic"
For the computer retarded, or for the computer saturated, or for the just plain lazy like me, do you mind scanning the design of your page and making it available. I like it a lot more than the overly complex Scott Specialty page design, or the over simplistic Steiner Design and would love to use it from time to time.
rrr...
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@rrraphy: I'd be happy to let anyone use it. I used Apple's Pages word processing program to create it, so it would be a slam dunk for anyone with an Apple computer. I can export it as an MS Word .docx file, but I don't know how well it would translate. We can try. I'll send you both Apple and MS Word files. Let me know if you can open one or the other successfully.
Bob
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Rrraphy asked if I could supply the file that I created for the Jamaica stamps shown above in this thread, and here:
No problem. I turned it into a "general" template which can be easily downloaded and edited by anyone with a PC or an Apple computer. You can move and resize the frames and add or delete anything at all. If you need a blank sheet of paper, you can delete everything and print it! 
Here's the URL:
http://www.ephemeraltreasures.net/imgs/album-page-template.docx
Bob
P.S. If anyone would like to have the original Jamaica page (not the stamps, just the page!) please PM me. I'll need your email address if it's not available in the member list.
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Here are some of the stamps I picked up at the New York show.
I found these at Champion Stamp Co. for half catalog value. Both are mnh. I am still missing the White Plains SS, that is on my buy list.
I picked these stamps for their cancels. Nothing rare but some nice strikes and I found a few more "patent" type cancels.
These two covers have patent cancels which cut into the stamp at the small circle in the center of the cancel.
I also added some books to my library. Appletons' United States postal Guide, 1863. Sloan's Column and Pat Paragraphs both published by The Bureau Issues Assosiation and these have hundreds of articles on various stamp topics.
Vince
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You cleaned up Vinman! Great purchases. I've always wanted those two sheets but never broke down and picked them up. I love those negative letter fancy cancels. What did the letters signify? Love the fancy cancelled U.S. you're always showing. How do you arrange and display them? By Scott number? Cancel type?
Ernie
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Hi Ernie,
The negative letter and numeral cancels are mostly from Boston although there are a few other cities that also used them. They are known as "Large Boston Negative Cancels". I believe they were used to indicate the clerk cancelling stamps at the time. My theory is that a clerk was not assigned one cancel but it would change daily. The supervisor on duty would keep track of what clerk used what cancel on a particular day so if there was a problem with a cover the supervisor could address the clerk who handled it. I arrange them first by issue dates. I don't have many of the earliest issues so I group them together 1847-57. The next set is the 1857-61 issues followed by 1861-66 then the grilled issues of 1867-68. I don't have very many of the 1869 issues but they are on their own pages. Then it is the Large Bank Note issues 1870-88 which is my largest collection. In each series I then break it down by cancel type. I have binders for separate binders for covers and stamps.
Vince
ps
I am the president of The US Cancellation Club and would be happy to send an application and issue of our newsletter if you might be interested in joining, this offer is to all Stamporama members.
I have a real interest in the Large Boston Negatives. I have been keeping records of the different types and dates of usage for the club. There are a few other collectors who specialize in this area.
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This recent eBay purchase is small potatoes compared to the gems posted on this thread, but it has some interest. The Swiss postcard depicts a stamp celebrating the 25 year anniversary of the U.P.U.
It first appears to be a woman, what with the long flowing locks, but I suspect it is Hermes. Rather than golden sandals with wings, wings have been planted on the side of his head. That just seems bizarre. Also, his heraldic staff with white ribbons is in the form of a telegraph pole -- very cool. The white ribbons have been given the added functionality of holding up the Swiss emblem. Finally, he appears to be delivering mail much in the form of my current mail man.
Eric
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Winedrinker said,
"Finally, he appears to be delivering mail much in the form of my current mail man."
No, no, no! Letter carriers (Canadian English) don't scatter the mail all over the place, they stuff it into your mailbox whether it fits or not. You can fold anything enough times to make it fit in a mailbox! That's basic physics!
Bob
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This nice 1925 registered Jamaica cover arrived from Roy Lingen today. It's franked with 1 1/2d "Contingent Embarking" stamp and the 3d "Jamaica Discovered by Columbus 1494" definitives. Both are probably from the re-issue of 1922-23 rather than the 1919 set.
The only way to tell for sure is to check the watermark, which is different for each set. For more information about the stamps, see the first post in this thread.
Bob
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Bob, I'd agree that its the later issue.. just from the date of the postmark and that it's a commercial cover rather than philatelic use.
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BenFranklin1902 is no doubt correct. The re-issued set is far more common than the original 1919 issue.
I just ran across an interesting tidbit about the 1919 issue on Wikipedia:
"A pictorial series in 1919 included twelve stamps, ranging from the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891 to various statues and scenery. The series was not commemorative, but was a result of repeated requests by local philatelists to governor Leslie Probyn."
Who says philatelists don't have political clout!?
Bob
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These two Italian stamps from 1951 mark (and illustrate in a 'before/after' manner) the restoration of Monte Cassino Abbey after the great battle between January and May 1944. There are a few issues (I make it 4 from Poland and 1 from Italy) which commemorate the battle itself, but after consideration I've decided to include the above in my WW2 'Mil. Ops' album (yet to be begun - all on Vario pages at present).
Succisa virescit is the Latin tag found on the arms of the Abbey, particularly appropriate to (though long predating) its modern history. It means "what was cut down grows again" - apparently a reference to the excellent practice among the early monks of growing their own vines for selling wine.
In these 'mint hinged' examples, the perfs at lower right on the L20 are a bit worn, and the L55 is centred slightly high, but otherwise they seem in reasonable condition and were a good purchase at around £8.50 ($11).
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The Monte Casino story is fascinating. My wife and I recently read The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, by Rick Atkinson. It's the second volume in his trilogy about the Second World War. The first volume is the excellent An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943; the third volume, which I haven't yet read, is The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945.
Atkins covers every aspect of the war in Sicily and Italy. I had known the basics about the battle for Monte Casino, but had little understanding of the extreme effort that was required to take it from the Germans, nor of the fact that the Germans weren't even there when the Royal Air Force was bombing it to flinders! Of course, I could say the same thing about the battles for Sicily and all of the Italian peninsula! Among the interesting factoids: Allied troops on the ground in Sicily weren't informed that Allied paratroopers were going to be arriving, and shot and killed many of them, thinking they were Germans; several thousand Allied soldiers died of malaria during the Battle of Anzio.
Here's Wikipedia entry:
"During the Battle of Monte Cassino in the Italian Campaign of World War II (January–May 1944) the Abbey made up one section of the 161-kilometre (100-mile) Gustav Line, a German defensive line designed to hold the Allied troops from advancing any further into Italy. The Gustav Line stretched from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic coast and the monastery was erroneously thought to be one of the key strongholds, with Monte Cassino itself overlooking Highway 6 and blocking the path to Rome. On 15 February 1944 the abbey was almost completely destroyed in a series of heavy American-led air raids. The Commander-in-Chief Allied Armies in Italy, General Sir Harold Alexander of the British army ordered the bombing. The bombing was conducted because many reports from the British commanders of the Indian troops on the ground suggested that Germans were occupying the monastery, and it was considered a key observational post by all those who were fighting in the field. However, during the bombing no Germans were present in the abbey. Subsequent investigations have since confirmed that the only people killed in the monastery by the bombing were 230 Italian civilians seeking refuge there. Only after the bombing were the ruins of the monastery occupied by German Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) of the 1st Parachute Division, because the ruins provided excellent defensive cover, aiding them in their defence."
The Wikipedia article neglects to note that it was Polish troops who finally succeeded in taking Monte Casino from the Germans.
Bob
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The Poles don't forget it, and nor should we.
My Monte Cassino book, read many years ago now, is Fred Majdalany's The Battle of Cassino, originally 1957.
Polish stamps from 1968, 1984, 1989, 1994 and 2014. The Italian stamp is worth a look, too:
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Bob,
The Wikipedia article states in its description of the fourth battle (along with a lot more information):
1. (The initial Polish attacks and the terrible losses they suffered)
In the mountains above Cassino, the aptly named Mount Calvary (Monte Calvario, or Point 593 on Snakeshead Ridge) was taken by the Poles only to be recaptured by German paratroops. For three days Polish attacks and German counter-attacks brought heavy losses to both sides. Polish II Corps lost 281 officers and 3,503 other ranks in assaults on Oberst Ludwig Heilmann's 4th Parachute Regiment, until the attacks were called off. "Just eight hundred Germans had succeeded in driving off attacks by two divisions," the area around the mountain having turned into a "miniature Verdun". In the early morning hours of 12 May, the Polish infantry divisions were met with "such devastating mortar, artillery and small-arms fire that the leading battalions were all but wiped out."
2. (The final capture by Polish forces)
On 17 May, Polish II Corps launched their second attack on Monte Cassino. Under constant artillery and mortar fire from the strongly fortified German positions and with little natural cover for protection, the fighting was fierce and at times hand-to-hand. With their line of supply threatened by the Allied advance in the Liri valley, the Germans decided to withdraw from the Cassino heights to the new defensive positions on the Hitler Line. In the early hours of 18 May the British 78th Division and Polish II Corps linked up in the Liri valley 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Cassino town. On the Cassino high ground the survivors of the second Polish offensive were so battered that "it took some time to find men with enough strength to climb the few hundred yards to the summit." A patrol of Polish 12th Podolian Polish cavalry Regiment finally made it to the heights and raised a Polish flag over the ruins. The only remnants of the defenders were a group of thirty German wounded who had been unable to move. "The Poles, on their second try, had taken Monte Cassino and the road to Rome was open." At the end of the war the Poles erected a Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino on the slope of the mountain.
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Fascinating history. Thanks for sharing the stamps and the history behind them.
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Still waiting on my Penny Black but this baby just arrived today... my initials also! Oh shoot!! Looks like I've got a new collecting interest going...They're beautiful and affordable. Love this stamp.
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Nice, Ernie!
4 margins...!
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Great stamp, and they personalized it for you too! 
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Just got my two pence blue with my initials! I love these stamps. Now I've got to find pairs and on cover. This makes the black, red and blue. I love early imperforate stamps from all areas; their crudeness is part of their charm. Check this baby out. Would love to hear some ideas on ways to collect these early GB stamps.
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"their crudeness is part of their charm"
Very nice stamp Ernie. I have to say though that I don't find these stamps crude at all. I have a couple of Penny Blacks, Reds, and Blues and find them quite subtle. Even the background is intricate as they used a device called the "Rose Engine" (if memory serves) to create the minute curved lines that are imbued in the background. Beautiful stamps.
And any stamp with Queen Victoria wearing the Diamond Diadem and that lovely chignon. Perfect.
Cheers!
Eric
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Thanks Eric.. "crude" is never a good word when referring to anything associated with Her Majesty. Damned Americans!
I actually love the Royals. Would love to see Prince William be a great king traveling the world and using his influence to make positive changes around the world.
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"I actually love the Royals. Would love to see Prince William be a great king traveling the world and using his influence to make positive changes around the world."
I can't get enough of the Royals either. I have totally bought into it. But, I suspect Prince Charles will get the chance to wield influence before William. The law of accession even trumps the tabloid newspapers desire to crown William (and Kate). It will be interesting.
Eric
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And now for something philatelic.
I haven't been buying much lately because I have been involved with my DJ job and that is taking some of my time and money. Also, i haven't been seeing much I want for my collection lately. Maybe I chilling a little since the New York show. I do have bids on some items on ebay and at auction so if I win those I will post some pictures.
Here are some labels from stamp shows for my show label collection. Hopefully I'll get a chance tonight to scan and post
some new cancels that I added to my collection
Front
Back
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I've been back in my New Jersey cancel collection this week. I found a NJ post office listing on line and put it into Excel. And I marked all the towns I currently have in the collection. Currently I have 261 towns represented on full cover. My list shows 631 towns so I have roughly 41% of them. And as I compare my spreadsheet listing to an old printed zip code directory, I'm adding in branch offices etc. And I found DPOs that weren't part of this supposedly complete listing of all that existed. I do realize there are some I will never find, but a bunch of low hanging fruit of local towns I can't believe I don't have!
Here's a few the eBay man delivered this week:
Cinnaminson
Long Branch Village (Long Branch is common "Village" wasn't even on the DPO list)
Oceanic
Pleasantdale
West End
All came from the same eBay dealer who had fair prices of $1-3 a cover. I'm glad to add more early covers to the hoard.
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Hi Tom, Nice covers. If you are interested in picture post cards there is an ebay seller I deal with who has a lot of post cards with pictures of different town post offices from NJ.
Vince
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Here are a few covers I recently picked up.
Letter W in nine bar ellipse from Westerly, RI.
Negative numeral 12 from New York, NY.
Negative S from Staunton, VA.
Spiral cancel from Evansville, IN.
Inverted negative M from Boston, MA.
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cool stuff Vince! Yes, I'd be interested in knowing about your postcard dealer. When I troll eBay for NJ cancels, I do check both the stamps / covers and the postcard categories. I've found some of my best cancels in the postcard category from unsuspecting postcard dealers!
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I just got my Penny Black and it has EXCEEDED my expectations! I was a little concerned because the image on eBay left much to the imagination but this one is SHARP and fault free. What I like best about this one is that it has a profile free cancel. I also like the red Maltese cross cancel. Never noticed the period after "one penny". I definitely think this one was worth a little bit of a premium.
So here's my monogrammed Vickies! Can we call them Vickies? LOL I love this new collecting direction. The two pence blue is on MUCH thinner paper.
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Very cool Ernie! Quite a trio there. And why not call them Vickies. Ford brought out the Crown Victoria in 1932, and that name was in the car line for eons, up to 2012. Car collectors have always referred to them as Vickies! So why not stamp folks?
And here is the Queen posing with her namesake car.
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Love the car but I think that's a dude...not that there's anything wrong with that.
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Well didn't it say,
""the QUEEN posing with her namesake car""
Mike
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Got some stuff this week! I've been working on my USA collection and then my NJ postmark collection. But I haven't been ignoring the Franklins. It's just that purchases can be few and far between due to the rarity of things I'm looking for, and the asking prices of the items.
I do have some misperforates in my collection. Some for decades. So when I see them for sale on eBay, unless they're dirt cheap, I generally book mark them to keep track. This week I was reviewing my book marks and I looked at this one closely... and realized that this is a misperf on the booklet pane, not the sheet! I've never seen one of these before!
It was for sale at a bit more than I wished to pay, but had the "Make An Offer" button. So I made a low offer. The seller responded by splitting the difference, which was fair. I ordered and waited, hoping it wasn't a pair that some numpty trimmed with scissors. It came the other day and I immediately put it up against my booklet panes and SCORE! It matches perfectly. So it could be worth considerably more than I paid, but matters little because it will never be for sale. I'm just very pleased to find something cool for the collection.
I usually pass on private perfs and perfins on cover because most dealers think they are gold. I won't pay an enormous price for either.
Private perfs on 314 on cover are pretty scarce. The technology was only starting to develop towards the end of this stamps issue period. So there were very few companies that bought the various company's stamp vending or affixing equipment. The various perforations were probably easy for collectors to get back then because I see them mainly on philatelic favor mail. There was one cover with a dealer's corner card that had three different brands of private perf pairs on it. It had a huge price on it and I passed because it really wasn't valid usage.
The majority of postally used private perfs are the Schermack Type 3 you see here. This one does fall into that philatelic favor category, but it was super cheap so I grabbed it.
Perfins were authorized by the post office department in 1908 to curtail the theft and resale of postage stamps by employees. And no system is perfect, this stamp appears to have been appropriated to send a quick note to the sender's daughter. I acquired it at a reasonable price so it goes in the collection. Anyone know who the "RT" was?
So it's been a good week! 
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RT = Royal Typewriter Co.
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It looks like RI to me
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RI = Rhode Island?
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Here are some of my recent acquisitions. The first cover has a patent cancel from Providence, RI. There is an enlargement of the cancel. This particular patent cancel uses small pin punches to break the stamp paper fibers so that the cancelling ink is absorbed into the stamp preventing reuse.
The next two covers are fancy cancels from New Orleans, LA. They are both addressed to the same address but three days apart and shows there is some wear on the cancelling device. New Orleans has many fancy cancels and these are some of the less elaborate ones.
These next two are my favorites this week. The first cover was sent to me by Mel (mbo1142)
because he knows I collect stamp show labels. Thank you Mel!
The second cover is a philatelic fantasy. The centers of the stamps are cut out and placed in the other stamp's frame. I would like to get the US 1922 series like this. I have seen them come up for sale before but were out of my price range.
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Nice covers Vinman. Thanks for posting and sharing.
BenFranklin, I think I know the answer to your penny postcard with the RI perfin postmarked Greeley, Colorado. Answer: Rock Island, nicknamed "The Rock." The stamp was most likely purchased at a Rock Island Railroad train depot, as they had trains that ran through Colorado, that would make a little more sense than Rhode Island in my opinion. I used to watch "The Rock" roll through small towns in Iowa when I was a boy.
Linus
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"Recent aquisitions number 7" was getting very long, so I thought I'd start a new thread.
My latest notable acquisition: Jamaica Scott 75-87 in mint condition (except for #83 — a nice mint copy of that stamp should arrive soon from a dealer in Spain):
I've been trying to complete this set in both used and mint condition for several years, buying single copies of stamps as I found them, but a couple of weeks ago I found this set in the APS Stamp Store. The difficult stamp is the 10-shilling King George V "Supreme Lord":
"Supreme Lord" seems so...colonial! Well, Jamaica was a colony, no question about that. My primary interest in the set of stamps is this "sub-set":
• The 1 1/2 pence stamp, commemorating the embarkation for Europe of the Jamaica contingent of the British West Indies Regiment:
• The 2 1/2 pence stamp, commemorating the return of the contingent from Europe:
The British West Indies Regiment was composed of volunteers from all walks of life from. On their passage to Europe, one ship was diverted to Halifax because of the danger of German U-boats; as a result of inadequate equipment, some 600 men suffered from exposure and frostbite, 106 men required amputations, and at least five men died.
During the war, most men of the Regiment serving in Europe were denied roles in combat, and instead performed basic labour, including the grisly work of burial details. They also suffered from severe weather conditions, frostbite, measles and mumps. In the Middle East, however, the BWIR was sent into combat and performed heroically, winning several medals and earning other commendations.
After the war, survivors of the BWIR were sent to Taranto, Italy, where they waited, and waited, for demobilization. While they waited, they were denied a pay raise that was given to white troops, and were required to do menial labour, including cleaning the latrines of white troops. They rioted in frustration, attacking their white officers. Several men were courtmartialed, and one was executed.
When the last of the BWIR troops were repatriated in September, 1919, they were accompanied by three British cruisers in order to prevent unrest once the ships docked at ports in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad. Officials feared that the soldiers, well-trained and now more politically aware, could create havoc for the status quo under which colonial life was governed.
Of the 10,000 volunteers from Jamaica, more than 1,000 never returned.
Bob
P.S. — Note for collectors who like to make their own album pages: I made this page using Apple's Pages word processing program. The fancy corner decorations came from a web site that offers a variety of free graphics.
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Nicely done, Bob — the purchase, the page design and the write-up. A very nice looking set.
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
The outrageous title "Supreme Lord", together with your reference to the disgraceful way in which these men were treated, is a salutary reminder of how things were a hundred years ago. You'd like to think people's attitudes have changed for the better since then, and they have, a bit, but nowhere near enough.
These colonial stamps are beautifully produced, and mask so much.
I notice you prefer the white mounts to the black ones I use - I agree they are effective, not least because the minor variations in the cut are far less visible. Too late for me to change, alas!
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I like the image of the watermark that you included. The whole page is very well done. Thanks for posting it!
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interesting to me seeing the number of men: "regiment" means different things, but I assumed a more traditional size of 1,000 to 1,500 men, not 10,000, which is traditionally more the size of a division. There are several huge American regiments: the Armored Cavalry regiments, often equivalent to an American division.
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I should also add that we don't need to go back 100 years to see this kind of discrimination and segregation; the beginning of the Koren war will do nicely. And, of course, the irony of segregated units in federal service in the war that was intended, in part, to secure their freedom
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Very nice page Bob! Yours is the type of album that once sold would be kept intact instead of the stamps being harvested and the album tossed! It adds so much to the stamps.
"Officials feared that the soldiers, well-trained and now more politically aware, could create havoc for the status quo under which colonial life was governed."
In view of the above quote, the way things have played out in history I wouldn't have been surprised if you said the escorting British cruisers sank the boat the unit was on in the middle of the ocean with no survivors, to protect their colony!
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Thanks to everyone for their compliments. That's the first album page I've done in a very long time, and the first I've ever done for Jamaican stamps. Usually I'm working on web pages or, lately, on writing a very long non-philatelic article about being wounded in Vietnam. But I enjoyed working on that album page. Maybe there are more in my future!
About the racism experienced by the West Indies soldiers: None of us should be surprised, of course, by the racial discrimination. When I was in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1960s, I lived with, worked with, and got along well with Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipinos, blacks, and even an Inuit. If there was any institutional racism, it wasn't very evident. I witnessed only one racist incident. A friend of mine, a black hospital corpsman, was told by a black shore patrol (Navy cop) that he'd be arrested if he didn't leave the restaurant where he and I and another white friend were having supper. My white friend and I, according to the shore patrolman, were "honkies".
@Guthrum, who said,
"I notice you prefer the white mounts to the black ones I use - I agree they are effective, not least because the minor variations in the cut are far less visible. Too late for me to change, alas!"
Don't assume that what you see is what I are! I go back and forth on mounts. In fact, usually I use black ones, I thought the clear mounts would emphasize those beautiful designs.
@David, who said,
"Interesting to me seeing the number of men: "regiment" means different things, but I assumed a more traditional size of 1,000 to 1,500 men, not 10,000... ."
As a military and combat veteran, I can only say, well, that I am mostly baffled by military organization, which of course is an oxymoron. I never have been able to fully grasp U.S. Marine Corps organization. I was just sailor who had been seconded to the Marines, and I went where they said to go and did what they said to do. This Wikipedia article about regiments sheds some light on the subject.
Bob
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
"About the racism experienced by the West Indies soldiers: None of us should be surprised, of course, by the racial discrimination. When I was in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1960s, I lived with, worked with, and got along well with Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipinos, blacks, and even an Inuit. If there was any institutional racism, it wasn't very evident. "
I grew up in the military, being the son of a US Army officer during the same time period. I was fairly free of prejudice because of the integration of my environment. As you mentioned, my friends were from all races, and since my dad was attached to NATO, different countries as well.
When we lived in Izmir, Turkey the only other American family in our neighborhood was a black Air Force officer and his family. They lived across the hall from us so our families did a lot of things together and the two girls were our American friends. We never thought of them as black, only as the other Americans!
The first time I really noticed, was when I was 14 and we returned to the USA. We bought a house in the NJ suburbs in anticipation of my father's retirement, the first time we ever owned a house. I started in a catholic high school and I immediately noticed there were only white people in school and the neighborhood. I thought that was rather odd!
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Further to the Jamaica stamps:
Several values of the 1919-1921 set of stamps was re-issued in 1922-1923, with some new values and designs, and Watermark #4 (Multiple Crown and Script "CA") rather than Watermark #3 (Multiple Crown and "CA"). One of the re-issued stamps was Scott #79, re-issued as #92. That's the stamp commemorating the return of the Jamaican soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment to Jamaica in 1919.
Scott notes one change in the re-issued stamp, in the flag at the left centre of the frame. In the 1921 version, the flag has a broad white stripe below a coloured stripe; in the 1922 version, the broad white stripe appears above the coloured stripe. I have eight copies of #92, but only one of #79, reflecting the relative scarcity of the first issue compared to the second; that scarcity is reflected in the stamps' catalogue values.
The colour my copies of #92 vary quite a lot; the mint copy I have could qualify as an example of a different shade, and perhaps does in other catalogues, but perhaps the plate was under-inked when it was printed.
Both #79 and #92 were printed in two colours, blue and dark blue according to Scott, but the difference between the two colours is quite subtle, especially on some individual copes such as the example of #92 shown below. Because the stamp was printed in two colours, each sheet of stamps required two printing plates and two passes through the printing press. As is common with such two-colour stamps, the two plates were not always registered properly, resulting in the frame and the vignette being misaligned in relation to each other, a problem which is evident in my mint copies of #s 79 and 92. Note that the vignette of the stamp, containing the images of the ship, buildings, men, and a truck is shifted slightly higher in #92 than in #79 — a mast on the ship almost touches the frame in #92, and the words "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919" have no background colour.
Notice that the vignette of engraving of stamp #79 runs into the words "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919". I wondered whether the vignette was printed before or after the border was printed, so I scanned the the text at very high resolution:
It certainly looks to me like the vignette was printed after the border was printed; if "RETURN OF A CONTINGENT 1919" had been printed after the vignette was printed, the darker ink of the vignette would have been covered by the lighter blue of the letters. Instead, the dark lines running left to right through the letters seem mostly continuous. Your thoughts?
"Flyspeck" collecting doesn't normally interest me very much, but this stamp intrigues me more than the others in the set, so I focussed on it.
Finally, in reference to earlier comments in this thread about racism, the Scott catalogue notes that a 6p stamp depicting the end of slavery in Jamaica delivered to Jamaica as part of this set, but was never issued. Hmmmm..... Could that have been a political decision? That apparently explains why the original set of stamps doesn't include a 6p value, and why the re-issued set does, a very handsome stamp picturing Port Royal, :
In 1692, Jamaica suffered a huge earthquake. That's a fascinating story, an object lesson which residents of Richmond and Delta, British Columbia, south of Vancouver, should take to heart. Read about it in the Wikipedia article about Port Royal.
Bob
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Gorgeous stamps and nice page design Bob.
Re:
"P.S. — Note for collectors who like to make their own album pages: I made this page using Apple's Pages word processing program. The fancy corner decorations came from a web site that offers a variety of free graphic"
For the computer retarded, or for the computer saturated, or for the just plain lazy like me, do you mind scanning the design of your page and making it available. I like it a lot more than the overly complex Scott Specialty page design, or the over simplistic Steiner Design and would love to use it from time to time.
rrr...
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@rrraphy: I'd be happy to let anyone use it. I used Apple's Pages word processing program to create it, so it would be a slam dunk for anyone with an Apple computer. I can export it as an MS Word .docx file, but I don't know how well it would translate. We can try. I'll send you both Apple and MS Word files. Let me know if you can open one or the other successfully.
Bob
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Rrraphy asked if I could supply the file that I created for the Jamaica stamps shown above in this thread, and here:
No problem. I turned it into a "general" template which can be easily downloaded and edited by anyone with a PC or an Apple computer. You can move and resize the frames and add or delete anything at all. If you need a blank sheet of paper, you can delete everything and print it! Here's the URL:
http://www.ephemeraltreasures.net/imgs/album-page-template.docx
Bob
P.S. If anyone would like to have the original Jamaica page (not the stamps, just the page!) please PM me. I'll need your email address if it's not available in the member list.
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Here are some of the stamps I picked up at the New York show.
I found these at Champion Stamp Co. for half catalog value. Both are mnh. I am still missing the White Plains SS, that is on my buy list.
I picked these stamps for their cancels. Nothing rare but some nice strikes and I found a few more "patent" type cancels.
These two covers have patent cancels which cut into the stamp at the small circle in the center of the cancel.
I also added some books to my library. Appletons' United States postal Guide, 1863. Sloan's Column and Pat Paragraphs both published by The Bureau Issues Assosiation and these have hundreds of articles on various stamp topics.
Vince
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11:02:24pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
You cleaned up Vinman! Great purchases. I've always wanted those two sheets but never broke down and picked them up. I love those negative letter fancy cancels. What did the letters signify? Love the fancy cancelled U.S. you're always showing. How do you arrange and display them? By Scott number? Cancel type?
Ernie
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Hi Ernie,
The negative letter and numeral cancels are mostly from Boston although there are a few other cities that also used them. They are known as "Large Boston Negative Cancels". I believe they were used to indicate the clerk cancelling stamps at the time. My theory is that a clerk was not assigned one cancel but it would change daily. The supervisor on duty would keep track of what clerk used what cancel on a particular day so if there was a problem with a cover the supervisor could address the clerk who handled it. I arrange them first by issue dates. I don't have many of the earliest issues so I group them together 1847-57. The next set is the 1857-61 issues followed by 1861-66 then the grilled issues of 1867-68. I don't have very many of the 1869 issues but they are on their own pages. Then it is the Large Bank Note issues 1870-88 which is my largest collection. In each series I then break it down by cancel type. I have binders for separate binders for covers and stamps.
Vince
ps
I am the president of The US Cancellation Club and would be happy to send an application and issue of our newsletter if you might be interested in joining, this offer is to all Stamporama members.
I have a real interest in the Large Boston Negatives. I have been keeping records of the different types and dates of usage for the club. There are a few other collectors who specialize in this area.
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This recent eBay purchase is small potatoes compared to the gems posted on this thread, but it has some interest. The Swiss postcard depicts a stamp celebrating the 25 year anniversary of the U.P.U.
It first appears to be a woman, what with the long flowing locks, but I suspect it is Hermes. Rather than golden sandals with wings, wings have been planted on the side of his head. That just seems bizarre. Also, his heraldic staff with white ribbons is in the form of a telegraph pole -- very cool. The white ribbons have been given the added functionality of holding up the Swiss emblem. Finally, he appears to be delivering mail much in the form of my current mail man.
Eric
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Winedrinker said,
"Finally, he appears to be delivering mail much in the form of my current mail man."
No, no, no! Letter carriers (Canadian English) don't scatter the mail all over the place, they stuff it into your mailbox whether it fits or not. You can fold anything enough times to make it fit in a mailbox! That's basic physics!
Bob
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This nice 1925 registered Jamaica cover arrived from Roy Lingen today. It's franked with 1 1/2d "Contingent Embarking" stamp and the 3d "Jamaica Discovered by Columbus 1494" definitives. Both are probably from the re-issue of 1922-23 rather than the 1919 set.
The only way to tell for sure is to check the watermark, which is different for each set. For more information about the stamps, see the first post in this thread.
Bob
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Bob, I'd agree that its the later issue.. just from the date of the postmark and that it's a commercial cover rather than philatelic use.
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BenFranklin1902 is no doubt correct. The re-issued set is far more common than the original 1919 issue.
I just ran across an interesting tidbit about the 1919 issue on Wikipedia:
"A pictorial series in 1919 included twelve stamps, ranging from the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891 to various statues and scenery. The series was not commemorative, but was a result of repeated requests by local philatelists to governor Leslie Probyn."
Who says philatelists don't have political clout!?
Bob
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These two Italian stamps from 1951 mark (and illustrate in a 'before/after' manner) the restoration of Monte Cassino Abbey after the great battle between January and May 1944. There are a few issues (I make it 4 from Poland and 1 from Italy) which commemorate the battle itself, but after consideration I've decided to include the above in my WW2 'Mil. Ops' album (yet to be begun - all on Vario pages at present).
Succisa virescit is the Latin tag found on the arms of the Abbey, particularly appropriate to (though long predating) its modern history. It means "what was cut down grows again" - apparently a reference to the excellent practice among the early monks of growing their own vines for selling wine.
In these 'mint hinged' examples, the perfs at lower right on the L20 are a bit worn, and the L55 is centred slightly high, but otherwise they seem in reasonable condition and were a good purchase at around £8.50 ($11).
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The Monte Casino story is fascinating. My wife and I recently read The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, by Rick Atkinson. It's the second volume in his trilogy about the Second World War. The first volume is the excellent An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943; the third volume, which I haven't yet read, is The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945.
Atkins covers every aspect of the war in Sicily and Italy. I had known the basics about the battle for Monte Casino, but had little understanding of the extreme effort that was required to take it from the Germans, nor of the fact that the Germans weren't even there when the Royal Air Force was bombing it to flinders! Of course, I could say the same thing about the battles for Sicily and all of the Italian peninsula! Among the interesting factoids: Allied troops on the ground in Sicily weren't informed that Allied paratroopers were going to be arriving, and shot and killed many of them, thinking they were Germans; several thousand Allied soldiers died of malaria during the Battle of Anzio.
Here's Wikipedia entry:
"During the Battle of Monte Cassino in the Italian Campaign of World War II (January–May 1944) the Abbey made up one section of the 161-kilometre (100-mile) Gustav Line, a German defensive line designed to hold the Allied troops from advancing any further into Italy. The Gustav Line stretched from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic coast and the monastery was erroneously thought to be one of the key strongholds, with Monte Cassino itself overlooking Highway 6 and blocking the path to Rome. On 15 February 1944 the abbey was almost completely destroyed in a series of heavy American-led air raids. The Commander-in-Chief Allied Armies in Italy, General Sir Harold Alexander of the British army ordered the bombing. The bombing was conducted because many reports from the British commanders of the Indian troops on the ground suggested that Germans were occupying the monastery, and it was considered a key observational post by all those who were fighting in the field. However, during the bombing no Germans were present in the abbey. Subsequent investigations have since confirmed that the only people killed in the monastery by the bombing were 230 Italian civilians seeking refuge there. Only after the bombing were the ruins of the monastery occupied by German Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) of the 1st Parachute Division, because the ruins provided excellent defensive cover, aiding them in their defence."
The Wikipedia article neglects to note that it was Polish troops who finally succeeded in taking Monte Casino from the Germans.
Bob
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The Poles don't forget it, and nor should we.
My Monte Cassino book, read many years ago now, is Fred Majdalany's The Battle of Cassino, originally 1957.
Polish stamps from 1968, 1984, 1989, 1994 and 2014. The Italian stamp is worth a look, too:
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Bob,
The Wikipedia article states in its description of the fourth battle (along with a lot more information):
1. (The initial Polish attacks and the terrible losses they suffered)
In the mountains above Cassino, the aptly named Mount Calvary (Monte Calvario, or Point 593 on Snakeshead Ridge) was taken by the Poles only to be recaptured by German paratroops. For three days Polish attacks and German counter-attacks brought heavy losses to both sides. Polish II Corps lost 281 officers and 3,503 other ranks in assaults on Oberst Ludwig Heilmann's 4th Parachute Regiment, until the attacks were called off. "Just eight hundred Germans had succeeded in driving off attacks by two divisions," the area around the mountain having turned into a "miniature Verdun". In the early morning hours of 12 May, the Polish infantry divisions were met with "such devastating mortar, artillery and small-arms fire that the leading battalions were all but wiped out."
2. (The final capture by Polish forces)
On 17 May, Polish II Corps launched their second attack on Monte Cassino. Under constant artillery and mortar fire from the strongly fortified German positions and with little natural cover for protection, the fighting was fierce and at times hand-to-hand. With their line of supply threatened by the Allied advance in the Liri valley, the Germans decided to withdraw from the Cassino heights to the new defensive positions on the Hitler Line. In the early hours of 18 May the British 78th Division and Polish II Corps linked up in the Liri valley 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Cassino town. On the Cassino high ground the survivors of the second Polish offensive were so battered that "it took some time to find men with enough strength to climb the few hundred yards to the summit." A patrol of Polish 12th Podolian Polish cavalry Regiment finally made it to the heights and raised a Polish flag over the ruins. The only remnants of the defenders were a group of thirty German wounded who had been unable to move. "The Poles, on their second try, had taken Monte Cassino and the road to Rome was open." At the end of the war the Poles erected a Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino on the slope of the mountain.
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Fascinating history. Thanks for sharing the stamps and the history behind them.
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03:07:28pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Still waiting on my Penny Black but this baby just arrived today... my initials also! Oh shoot!! Looks like I've got a new collecting interest going...They're beautiful and affordable. Love this stamp.
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Nice, Ernie!
4 margins...!
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Great stamp, and they personalized it for you too!
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07:28:41pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Just got my two pence blue with my initials! I love these stamps. Now I've got to find pairs and on cover. This makes the black, red and blue. I love early imperforate stamps from all areas; their crudeness is part of their charm. Check this baby out. Would love to hear some ideas on ways to collect these early GB stamps.
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"their crudeness is part of their charm"
Very nice stamp Ernie. I have to say though that I don't find these stamps crude at all. I have a couple of Penny Blacks, Reds, and Blues and find them quite subtle. Even the background is intricate as they used a device called the "Rose Engine" (if memory serves) to create the minute curved lines that are imbued in the background. Beautiful stamps.
And any stamp with Queen Victoria wearing the Diamond Diadem and that lovely chignon. Perfect.
Cheers!
Eric
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08:30:41pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Thanks Eric.. "crude" is never a good word when referring to anything associated with Her Majesty. Damned Americans!
I actually love the Royals. Would love to see Prince William be a great king traveling the world and using his influence to make positive changes around the world.
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"I actually love the Royals. Would love to see Prince William be a great king traveling the world and using his influence to make positive changes around the world."
I can't get enough of the Royals either. I have totally bought into it. But, I suspect Prince Charles will get the chance to wield influence before William. The law of accession even trumps the tabloid newspapers desire to crown William (and Kate). It will be interesting.
Eric
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
And now for something philatelic.
I haven't been buying much lately because I have been involved with my DJ job and that is taking some of my time and money. Also, i haven't been seeing much I want for my collection lately. Maybe I chilling a little since the New York show. I do have bids on some items on ebay and at auction so if I win those I will post some pictures.
Here are some labels from stamp shows for my show label collection. Hopefully I'll get a chance tonight to scan and post
some new cancels that I added to my collection
Front
Back
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I've been back in my New Jersey cancel collection this week. I found a NJ post office listing on line and put it into Excel. And I marked all the towns I currently have in the collection. Currently I have 261 towns represented on full cover. My list shows 631 towns so I have roughly 41% of them. And as I compare my spreadsheet listing to an old printed zip code directory, I'm adding in branch offices etc. And I found DPOs that weren't part of this supposedly complete listing of all that existed. I do realize there are some I will never find, but a bunch of low hanging fruit of local towns I can't believe I don't have!
Here's a few the eBay man delivered this week:
Cinnaminson
Long Branch Village (Long Branch is common "Village" wasn't even on the DPO list)
Oceanic
Pleasantdale
West End
All came from the same eBay dealer who had fair prices of $1-3 a cover. I'm glad to add more early covers to the hoard.
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Hi Tom, Nice covers. If you are interested in picture post cards there is an ebay seller I deal with who has a lot of post cards with pictures of different town post offices from NJ.
Vince
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Here are a few covers I recently picked up.
Letter W in nine bar ellipse from Westerly, RI.
Negative numeral 12 from New York, NY.
Negative S from Staunton, VA.
Spiral cancel from Evansville, IN.
Inverted negative M from Boston, MA.
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cool stuff Vince! Yes, I'd be interested in knowing about your postcard dealer. When I troll eBay for NJ cancels, I do check both the stamps / covers and the postcard categories. I've found some of my best cancels in the postcard category from unsuspecting postcard dealers!
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11:49:32am
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
I just got my Penny Black and it has EXCEEDED my expectations! I was a little concerned because the image on eBay left much to the imagination but this one is SHARP and fault free. What I like best about this one is that it has a profile free cancel. I also like the red Maltese cross cancel. Never noticed the period after "one penny". I definitely think this one was worth a little bit of a premium.
So here's my monogrammed Vickies! Can we call them Vickies? LOL I love this new collecting direction. The two pence blue is on MUCH thinner paper.
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Very cool Ernie! Quite a trio there. And why not call them Vickies. Ford brought out the Crown Victoria in 1932, and that name was in the car line for eons, up to 2012. Car collectors have always referred to them as Vickies! So why not stamp folks?
And here is the Queen posing with her namesake car.
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02:08:49pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Love the car but I think that's a dude...not that there's anything wrong with that.
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Well didn't it say,
""the QUEEN posing with her namesake car""
Mike
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Got some stuff this week! I've been working on my USA collection and then my NJ postmark collection. But I haven't been ignoring the Franklins. It's just that purchases can be few and far between due to the rarity of things I'm looking for, and the asking prices of the items.
I do have some misperforates in my collection. Some for decades. So when I see them for sale on eBay, unless they're dirt cheap, I generally book mark them to keep track. This week I was reviewing my book marks and I looked at this one closely... and realized that this is a misperf on the booklet pane, not the sheet! I've never seen one of these before!
It was for sale at a bit more than I wished to pay, but had the "Make An Offer" button. So I made a low offer. The seller responded by splitting the difference, which was fair. I ordered and waited, hoping it wasn't a pair that some numpty trimmed with scissors. It came the other day and I immediately put it up against my booklet panes and SCORE! It matches perfectly. So it could be worth considerably more than I paid, but matters little because it will never be for sale. I'm just very pleased to find something cool for the collection.
I usually pass on private perfs and perfins on cover because most dealers think they are gold. I won't pay an enormous price for either.
Private perfs on 314 on cover are pretty scarce. The technology was only starting to develop towards the end of this stamps issue period. So there were very few companies that bought the various company's stamp vending or affixing equipment. The various perforations were probably easy for collectors to get back then because I see them mainly on philatelic favor mail. There was one cover with a dealer's corner card that had three different brands of private perf pairs on it. It had a huge price on it and I passed because it really wasn't valid usage.
The majority of postally used private perfs are the Schermack Type 3 you see here. This one does fall into that philatelic favor category, but it was super cheap so I grabbed it.
Perfins were authorized by the post office department in 1908 to curtail the theft and resale of postage stamps by employees. And no system is perfect, this stamp appears to have been appropriated to send a quick note to the sender's daughter. I acquired it at a reasonable price so it goes in the collection. Anyone know who the "RT" was?
So it's been a good week!
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09:12:05pm
re: Recent acquisitions number 8
RT = Royal Typewriter Co.
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
It looks like RI to me
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
RI = Rhode Island?
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Here are some of my recent acquisitions. The first cover has a patent cancel from Providence, RI. There is an enlargement of the cancel. This particular patent cancel uses small pin punches to break the stamp paper fibers so that the cancelling ink is absorbed into the stamp preventing reuse.
The next two covers are fancy cancels from New Orleans, LA. They are both addressed to the same address but three days apart and shows there is some wear on the cancelling device. New Orleans has many fancy cancels and these are some of the less elaborate ones.
These next two are my favorites this week. The first cover was sent to me by Mel (mbo1142)
because he knows I collect stamp show labels. Thank you Mel!
The second cover is a philatelic fantasy. The centers of the stamps are cut out and placed in the other stamp's frame. I would like to get the US 1922 series like this. I have seen them come up for sale before but were out of my price range.
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re: Recent acquisitions number 8
Nice covers Vinman. Thanks for posting and sharing.
BenFranklin, I think I know the answer to your penny postcard with the RI perfin postmarked Greeley, Colorado. Answer: Rock Island, nicknamed "The Rock." The stamp was most likely purchased at a Rock Island Railroad train depot, as they had trains that ran through Colorado, that would make a little more sense than Rhode Island in my opinion. I used to watch "The Rock" roll through small towns in Iowa when I was a boy.
Linus
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