Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
This is the cutline I've written, but need help with, or at least confirmation that I'm correct:
"This postcard, cancelled in Arenas Valley, New Mexico in 1949, was “favour cancelled” by the postmaster at the request of the recipient, a marcophilatelist. Marcophily, occasionally called Marcophilately, is the specialized study and collection of postmarks, cancellations and postal markings applied by hand or machine on mail that passes through the mail stream."
I am puzzled, though, by the hand stamp on the back of the postcard, "THEODORE DILLER / COPAKE, N.Y."
I assume that marcophcilatelists mail their own self-address postcards and envelops to post offices. So, did Theodore Diller (a stamp dealer?) mail the pre-addressed postcard to Arenas Valley on behalf of Marie Young, with a request for it to be cancelled there? If not, why is his name stamped on the back.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Bob
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As early as the 1930s, many collectors interested in the contemporary postal markings from small post offices would send one or more postal cards to postmasters with a request to postmark them and return. Back in the 1 cent postal card era, they often used the two part reply postal cards. You will also see examples where the collector asked for the Postmaster's autograph.
I suspect this card was sent under cover to the postmaster at Arenas Valley, NM by Mrs (Miss?) Marie Young. I suspect that the second name, on the reverse, may be the name of a later collector who obtained the card.
As a collector of such cards with postal markings from Texas post offices, I often encounter many cards created over long periods of time, all sent to the same collector. Many are "historic" members of the Post Mark Collectors Club, an organization dedicated to collectors of these types of cards and their markings.
The Postmark Collector's Club (PMCC) operates the National Postmark Museum, which has a collection of nearly two million philatelic and postal history items. Virtually every attempt to catalog the postmarks from a state or region or city had made use of this collection. Information about the PMCC and the Museum can be found here.
https://www.postmarks.org/
The PMCC also develops and maintains current lists of all post offices, stations and branches, and contract units, in all states and some lists for Canada. These lists are much more useful than the electronic USPS website information when trying to identify what postal facilities are operational and their ZIP codes.
MikeL
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Just visited their website. Couldn't find a membership application anywhere. There was mention of sending a filled out app blank along with the dues to an address. I guess I'll send off a request for a app via the US pony express.
Noted that the email addresses were not clickable or even text to copy. Some kind of security?
Tad
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Membership Application for PMCC is found here:
https://www.postmarks.org/members/PMCCMe ...
On the webpage where you were looking, it indicates that you should click on the "(.pdf)" or "(.docx)" to download the Application form. There is a very faint underline on these two links, which I agree it is not obvious, and have advised our webmaster to consider making it more obvious.
The contact emails are provided in an image for security, rather in plain text.
In this format, bots scanning the website cannot harvest the email addresses and generate more "junk".
You can simply retype the email if you wish to contact one of the officers.
I hope you will consider joining us.
MikeL
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Bobostamp,
Arenas Valley New Mexico is a dis-continued post office. You'll find more information about it if you look for discontinued post offices. That should give you something to write about.
Jeremy
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@ Jeremy,
Thank you for the information, Jeremy, but my conscience insists that I tell the truth: I am the world’s leading authority on the Arenas Valley Post Office, perhaps its only authority, because hardly anyone else seems interested.
You see, my family moved from New York State to Arenas Valley in 1949, and lived there until 1957, when we moved to nearby Silver City. Arenas Valley is where I was introduced to stamp collecting; I spent a lot more time in its post office than my friends did! My best friend's mother, Olga Harper, was its first postmaster.
Just today I have put the finishing touches on my web page about the post office, providing information about its name and the name it was more commonly known by — Whiskey Creek. Please have a look at Box 28. You'll see a photograph of the post office, which was perhaps the ugliest and most disreputable post office in all 50 states and U.S. possessions; the photograph was supplied by the Postmark Collector's Club (PMCC). I have little doubt that the photograph of the post office is the only one in existence. (The web page includes images of some rare Arenas Valley covers, as well as a postcard that I mailed from Boy Scout camp to my parents in 1954. It's safe to say that all covers and postcards postmarked in Arenas Valley are extremely rare, and as valuable as dirt.)
I have recently learned a interest thing about the arroyo (normally dry gulch) called Whiskey Creek that runs through Arenas Valley. It never was an actual creek, as far as I know. When my family lived in Arenas Valley, Whiskey Creek used to flood violently when there were heavy storms in the nearby Piños Altos Mountains; we could its roar from our house, only 200 feet south of Whiskey Creek.
Today it’s obvious (from Google Street View) that the arroyo hasn’t had more than a trickle of water in it for years. A “thought experiment” caused me to contact a geology professor at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. She agrees with my conclusion, that New Mexico’s long drought, combined with the tinder-dry conditions in Arenas Valley’s watershed, mostly in the Gila National Forest, have caused the drying up of Whiskey Creek and could easily result in a wildfire and subsequent violent rain storms could result in flooding that would devastate Arenas Valley. I’m working on another web page about that possibility.
Such a scenario has an historical precedent.: In the late 1890s and early 1900s, storms in the same mountains flooded Silver City’s Main Street, destroyed many structures, “merely” removed the fronts from some homes and commercial establishments, and eroded the soil beneath the street down to bedrock some 20 or 30 feet below. Main Street became what is known today as Big Ditch and is a local park. The alley to the west of Main Street became a new “Main Street,” called Bullard Street after the two brothers who founded Silver City. You can see a photos of the Big Ditch on my web page, Remembering Silver City.
Bob
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I want to use this postcard as an illustration for a web page that I hope to publish soon, but I'm not sure how to describe it:
This is the cutline I've written, but need help with, or at least confirmation that I'm correct:
"This postcard, cancelled in Arenas Valley, New Mexico in 1949, was “favour cancelled” by the postmaster at the request of the recipient, a marcophilatelist. Marcophily, occasionally called Marcophilately, is the specialized study and collection of postmarks, cancellations and postal markings applied by hand or machine on mail that passes through the mail stream."
I am puzzled, though, by the hand stamp on the back of the postcard, "THEODORE DILLER / COPAKE, N.Y."
I assume that marcophcilatelists mail their own self-address postcards and envelops to post offices. So, did Theodore Diller (a stamp dealer?) mail the pre-addressed postcard to Arenas Valley on behalf of Marie Young, with a request for it to be cancelled there? If not, why is his name stamped on the back.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Bob
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like this post.
Login to Like.
re: How to describe this postcard
As early as the 1930s, many collectors interested in the contemporary postal markings from small post offices would send one or more postal cards to postmasters with a request to postmark them and return. Back in the 1 cent postal card era, they often used the two part reply postal cards. You will also see examples where the collector asked for the Postmaster's autograph.
I suspect this card was sent under cover to the postmaster at Arenas Valley, NM by Mrs (Miss?) Marie Young. I suspect that the second name, on the reverse, may be the name of a later collector who obtained the card.
As a collector of such cards with postal markings from Texas post offices, I often encounter many cards created over long periods of time, all sent to the same collector. Many are "historic" members of the Post Mark Collectors Club, an organization dedicated to collectors of these types of cards and their markings.
The Postmark Collector's Club (PMCC) operates the National Postmark Museum, which has a collection of nearly two million philatelic and postal history items. Virtually every attempt to catalog the postmarks from a state or region or city had made use of this collection. Information about the PMCC and the Museum can be found here.
https://www.postmarks.org/
The PMCC also develops and maintains current lists of all post offices, stations and branches, and contract units, in all states and some lists for Canada. These lists are much more useful than the electronic USPS website information when trying to identify what postal facilities are operational and their ZIP codes.
MikeL
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03:35:27pm
re: How to describe this postcard
Just visited their website. Couldn't find a membership application anywhere. There was mention of sending a filled out app blank along with the dues to an address. I guess I'll send off a request for a app via the US pony express.
Noted that the email addresses were not clickable or even text to copy. Some kind of security?
Tad
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this post
re: How to describe this postcard
Membership Application for PMCC is found here:
https://www.postmarks.org/members/PMCCMe ...
On the webpage where you were looking, it indicates that you should click on the "(.pdf)" or "(.docx)" to download the Application form. There is a very faint underline on these two links, which I agree it is not obvious, and have advised our webmaster to consider making it more obvious.
The contact emails are provided in an image for security, rather in plain text.
In this format, bots scanning the website cannot harvest the email addresses and generate more "junk".
You can simply retype the email if you wish to contact one of the officers.
I hope you will consider joining us.
MikeL
Login to Like
this post
06:39:36pm
re: How to describe this postcard
Bobostamp,
Arenas Valley New Mexico is a dis-continued post office. You'll find more information about it if you look for discontinued post offices. That should give you something to write about.
Jeremy
Login to Like
this post
re: How to describe this postcard
@ Jeremy,
Thank you for the information, Jeremy, but my conscience insists that I tell the truth: I am the world’s leading authority on the Arenas Valley Post Office, perhaps its only authority, because hardly anyone else seems interested.
You see, my family moved from New York State to Arenas Valley in 1949, and lived there until 1957, when we moved to nearby Silver City. Arenas Valley is where I was introduced to stamp collecting; I spent a lot more time in its post office than my friends did! My best friend's mother, Olga Harper, was its first postmaster.
Just today I have put the finishing touches on my web page about the post office, providing information about its name and the name it was more commonly known by — Whiskey Creek. Please have a look at Box 28. You'll see a photograph of the post office, which was perhaps the ugliest and most disreputable post office in all 50 states and U.S. possessions; the photograph was supplied by the Postmark Collector's Club (PMCC). I have little doubt that the photograph of the post office is the only one in existence. (The web page includes images of some rare Arenas Valley covers, as well as a postcard that I mailed from Boy Scout camp to my parents in 1954. It's safe to say that all covers and postcards postmarked in Arenas Valley are extremely rare, and as valuable as dirt.)
I have recently learned a interest thing about the arroyo (normally dry gulch) called Whiskey Creek that runs through Arenas Valley. It never was an actual creek, as far as I know. When my family lived in Arenas Valley, Whiskey Creek used to flood violently when there were heavy storms in the nearby Piños Altos Mountains; we could its roar from our house, only 200 feet south of Whiskey Creek.
Today it’s obvious (from Google Street View) that the arroyo hasn’t had more than a trickle of water in it for years. A “thought experiment” caused me to contact a geology professor at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. She agrees with my conclusion, that New Mexico’s long drought, combined with the tinder-dry conditions in Arenas Valley’s watershed, mostly in the Gila National Forest, have caused the drying up of Whiskey Creek and could easily result in a wildfire and subsequent violent rain storms could result in flooding that would devastate Arenas Valley. I’m working on another web page about that possibility.
Such a scenario has an historical precedent.: In the late 1890s and early 1900s, storms in the same mountains flooded Silver City’s Main Street, destroyed many structures, “merely” removed the fronts from some homes and commercial establishments, and eroded the soil beneath the street down to bedrock some 20 or 30 feet below. Main Street became what is known today as Big Ditch and is a local park. The alley to the west of Main Street became a new “Main Street,” called Bullard Street after the two brothers who founded Silver City. You can see a photos of the Big Ditch on my web page, Remembering Silver City.
Bob
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