My Cover Purchase At The Charlotte Stamp/Post Card Show

I spent the high sum of $15 at the Charlotte Stamp and Post Card show this weekend. I would have loved to look at the reverse side of the post cards there, but I couldn't get within 3 miles of them - I didn't know there were that many post card collectors in this area! Two or three people would get together and for 10 minutes discuss the meaning of a post card image. Geeeeesh!

The first cover is an 1858 with a Washington stamp - I have not identified the exact Scott # yet.



Cover #2 is a registered receipt - Feb 1, 1937. The reason I like this one is it has an RPO cancellation.





Cover #3 is a Zeppelin post card, Aug 6, 1929.






Cover #4 is an interesting cover. It is a first flight cover - Floral Park, NY to Newark, NJ airport - a distance of maybe 20 air miles. It has a C23 center line plate block of 6 on a UC3 embossed airmail envelope - a total of 42 cents to go 20 miles! (Too bad that the lower left stamp is damaged.) That is quite an expense for 1938. It does have an unusual cachet which indicates it was sponsered by the Sewanhaka High School.





Roosevelt Field -
- Wiki

Cover 5 is another interesting cover. It is also an RPO - the first trip of the new streamliner from New York City to Detroit by way of Buffalo and Cleveland.



What really intrigued me about this cover is the date - Dec 7, 1941. It is a possibility that this cover was being franked on the train during the bombing of Pearl Harbor!

I'm starting to think that a fun topical would be to collect the LZ-127 Zeppelin flight covers as I'm starting to see more of them. Nice PB on the Airmail cover !

Your second scan with the RPO card postmarked Muirkirk, MD is a DPO (discontinued post office). Muirkirk was only an active post office from 1865-1966.

NC- I tried to zoom in on the 3c 1857, and not enough detail. I couldn't see a frame line on the bottom-- there may be one there, but it looked like it's one of the 26's.

Sorry I couldn't be more help here, Ray

As it relates to your last cover, here's a 3 minute video of the Empire State Express with classic images -- in full art deco fashion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmySqvkqAxM

And yes, it was an unfortunate coincidence that the inaugural run of the train was the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, it raised some heads when there was not much of a crowd at its inaugural run until those on board heard of events of that day.

Here is a closeup of the stamp.

I too was at the Charlotte show and wish I could have gotten out of there for $15. But alas it was not to be on Sunday. That being said the crowd wasn't too bad when I was there Sunday. The dealers were saying the traffic was much heavier on Saturday. The weather could have played into that as well.