US Army Covers From 2ww And Few Others From The Same Period

Filipo,
The first 5 covers were thw 3 cent war rate. In 1917 the U.S. raise the postage rate for 1st class letters from 2 cent to 3 cent to help finance the cost of WWI. the 4 covers from the YMCA were probably from servicemen, possibly on their way to France. The Trenton, N.J. Dix Branch would have been for Fort Dix. Many servicemen stay at the YMCA during both WWI and WWII. The color variation was common on these issues for three reasons. First, the inks used on these issues tended to fade from sunlight and certain chemicals. Second, There were 2 different issues Scott 501 and 502. The 501 was light violet and the 502 was dark violet. The first cover is a 502, the last three are probably 501 the second might be either. Third, the increased demand for the 3 cent stamps cause a need for ink that was not mixed in this large quantity. There appears to be great variance from batch to batch. These stamps range from pale reddish violet to dark bluish violet and sometime even grayish violet shades.

The second group are from the Canal Zone. I like the cancel on the second one as it shows a map of the Panama Canal. The first one is a WWII censored mail from someone station on a anti-aircraft battery. During WWII the U.S. increased the military forces due to the critics stategic value of the canal. Both of these are very nice covers.

Third group, this is the same perfin, I will check the name and see if I can find more info.

The 3 postal cards the first is Scott UX12, I don't have my catalog with me for the others. Hopefully another forum member will help wiyh identifying them further. Nice early flag cancel on the second one.

Fifth group. Many early U.S. stamps were poorly centered. The paper had a moisture content of 30-35% for printing. The shrinkage when they dried caused centering problems in perforating. Additionally, most early stamps were manually fed into the perforater which added to the centering problem. The last two stamps were printed from 1903-1908 with over 20 billion printed. Some of the stamps appeared blurry due to excess moisture in the paper, worn plates, plates not properly wiped during printing and a variety of other factors.

The last item is very interesting. It appears that the picture is set inside a cutout frame. Is that correct? It also looks like a date below the lower right corner 18?? I have only seen a couple of examples similar to this. One was a cutout frame bordered in black with a picture inside as a mourning cover. The other was of a young lady who was about the wed. I am not sure exactly what this is but it is very unusual and very attractive.

I hope that this might shed some light on these and that the information is of value to you. Thanks for sharing these items.

Thank you so much again, Russ, you are a great member here! :)

About the last item - no, it is entire printed in one piece! There is no parts, just like the normal stamp. Yes, it looks like cut out, but the surface of entire stamp is completely smooth. And it has a measures of the normal stamp, I just enlarged with scanner to me better visible.

I know that today this kind of things could be printed easily, even at home, but I can't believe that someone did in 19th century... for personal purpose? Photographs itself were scarce in that times, even in books and newspapers, and that someone could make something like this just for itself... very unusual.

I found it one official journal, from famous Austrian military school of Wiener Neustadt, written by some lieutenant - lecturer? There is some another stamps glued here and there in it, but, text in journal is written completely in old German cursive script, totally unreadable for me, so I am unable to read the story (if it exist, maybe are entries just sporadic ones, not connected with this stamp)...

And, at last, I am pretty sure that it had a real gum... but, I can't be sure 100% now.

filipo,
The picture does look old, maybe an old picture that has been reprinted. You will find that all the members here are very helpful. I think most stamp collectors are amature historians. Hopefully more members will bring more answers to you. Thanks again for sharing your items with us.

Russ, that journal (handwritten diary) is originally written in 189-ies, and stamp is glued in the time when it is written. So, I am sure that stamp is from that period or even earlier. It is incorporated in handwritten text, a writer left a space in his penmanship for this stamp to be glued, so it wasn't added later.

However, I wouldn't like to bother with this any more, but I can show you something you would like to see maybe more. I just saw that you are from Colorado, so I can make some scans from another handwritten diary/journal, also from the late 19th century, written by one American explorer on his trip in Colorado... Nothing special, but few interesting notations about Native Americans there, Mountains etc.

There is no stamps in it, but you maybe will be glad to see it... If I am correct, let me know, and I will make some scans tomorrow!

filipo, that would be great.

So, here are some pages from the trip diary...

filipo,
Seems like the author probably worked for the railroad. Very familar with the locations in the journal. Pikes Peak is 20 miles (32 km) north of me, Spanish Peaks 40 miles (65 km) south and Rocky Ford 48 miles east. Based on the train stations named (all in Nebraska) he probably travel Union Pacific RR to Denver. He spoke of shortness of breath on Pikes Peak which is common the elevation is 14,110 feet (4300 m). Interesting journal, Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for your observations, Russ. I am very glad to scan and add new stuff here, if people are interested to see it.

In the first page of the journal is written that the man who wrote it was 66 years old when he made entries... so he was probably retired, and just traveled allover the USA. Later in the journal he visited "Lost Angeles" (yes, he wrote it several times Lost!), and taste orange fruit for the first time in his life.

I have another journal, written by 19 years old man from Illinois, who gone the West to working new railways... He spent his days in camps allover Oregon Territory, Iowa Territory and Utah. It diary is more descriptive, and he wrote entire page for every day in the year 1879. I got with this diary his compass and a little gemstone (probably dig somewhere in Oregon). I can place here few pages from that diary... or to finish the previous one with California entries?

Here is from another collection citizenship from Oregon Territory, from the year 1872... It has a revenue stamp and a wonderful preserved red seal. I am curious to know are there exist people who are collecting these kind of documents...

Here are some uploads for today...

1. Early? Air-Mail letter; Cover from Bahamas (letter written by John. T. McCutcheon); cover with early American flag cancel.

2. 3 envelopes

3. Letter written by Harry S. New, 48th United States Postmaster General.

4. Cover of the letter from Harry S. New

This is all great stuff filipo. It is like reading a history book but it is most fresh and interesting.

I think a lot of people enjoy stories of explorers, experienced or not. It helps us imagine we are there and exploring.

And the comments by Russ are also very interesting as they give more insight into US postal history and stamps. Quite a bit of knowledge I am gleaning from all this.

Great writing by both also.

Puzzler, thank you very much for your comment. I am glad to add more pieces, when I know that people like to see and reading them here.

I have a journal written in 1873. by one John Somerville, who gone to live in Canada, from Birmingham UK. He came in your country on SS Prussian. So, he wrote in his journal about travel, living in Canada, some personal thoughts etc.

But, he also used to remove stamps from the letters he received (mostly from UK, but also some from Canada) and to glued them into first page on his journal. So, he was maybe one of the first philatelists in Canada :) His started his journal in 1873., so stamps are mostly from that period, or maybe little later...



And here is a link on the high-resolution scan of that page...

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/...65558324.jpg

Now that is fascinating also.

People collect and study those numeral cancels so even though the stamp may be damaged it may still be of value depending on the rarity of the cancel.

I have an old worldwide album / catalogue from a collector from St Pierre et Miquelon published in 1894. It is wonderful to see there is a history of stamp collecting, sorting and organizing and studying, going back even further. part of the fun is not only the stamps in whatever condition they may be in, but the way they collected and arranged things, how they thought too.

Perhaps years from now stamp collectors will shake their heads at our primitive methods of archiving stamps and documents due to their newer technology.

Of course, in future they will surely preserve they stamps in vacuum space, and without gravity, so that time also can't make any damage to them :)

Here are another airmail covers... and one stamp with a cancel which looks unusual to me... it seems that it is partly made with a pencil?

Love that page Filipo!

Indicates the owner was a pure collector,
probably didn't know much about stamps, but collected
them anyhows because they were attractive in some way.

The repetitious postmarks in a way confirm your story
he was getting mail regularly from postmarks 177 and 357

filipo, Nice covers, really like the 18 cent air mail rate from San Juan, P.R. great wartime territorial usage.