Auction Finds

Hello All:
Although I have never posted before, I have been reading and gaining information from this site for years.
On January 1st I attended an Estate Auction and purchased theses First Day Covers from 1940.











There were 28 different first day covers in all. They are all in great condition, and I don't believe they have seen the light of day for years.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on these, and since I am more a coin collector than a stamp collector, if any of you have any ideas on values, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Saul

I find it interesting that Ms. Anderson used airmail envelopes for the covers for non-airmail stamps. I am unsure of the value, my catalog is unavailable at this time.

Welcome to posting on the Stamp Community Forum, SaulsCoins!

The FDCs you show are from the Famous Americans Series of the 1940s. It's a very popular set. However, if you only have 28 covers, you probably don't have the entire set (35 different stamps). You do have the FDC for the most valuable stamp in the set -- the 10c Alexander Graham Bell. That should catalog for about $10 for an addressed and cacheted cover. The unaddressed covers command a premium.

Unfortunately, your covers are not cacheted, which will result in a major discount; also, the envelope adhesive has browned (not unusual, but will cause the value to take a hit). I would expect the retail value to be 50c-$2. If the other covers are from the Famous Americans series and are in the same condition, expect them to retail for <$1, depending on which stamp in the set. The 10c stamps in the Famous Americans will be at the high end, anything else will drop in retail value quickly.

It is a nice and popular series. Congratulations on your acquisition.

Thanks khj, I really appreciate this information, and I knew I could get good information here. I am planning on using the Saint Gaudens stamp in a collection set
with coins he designed,

That would be a nice pairing! A lot of the value in collectibles is how you put things together.

Some people feel that addressed covers add "personality" to a cover. Don't feel you have to abide by what catalog values/criteria say, or what I tell you the typical retail might be. Many buyers are not "conformist". Good for them! Makes collecting and looking at collections more interesting.

Here are the 10c in this set

SaulsCoins, First welcome to SCF. Unusual that these FD covers all paid the 6 cent airmail rate. Even without be cacheted they are still nice.

Good point, Russ. The domestic airmail rate was 6c from 1934-1944. As Stamperdude pointed out, Ms. Anderson used envelopes inscribed by airmail -- so she would have been required to affix 6c. I'm pretty sure she did this deliberately, but why? The 6 1c stamps cover up the "VIA AIR MAIL" inscription, so I wonder if that one actually went by airmail or not?

Of course, the post office no longer distinguishes between first class and domestic airmail (the latter category no longer exists).

Because they were inscribed for airmail (unusual for non-airmail stamps), these covers might fetch a higher price but you would have to find the "right" buyer.

Yep, you got all 7 of the 10c stamps in the series.

BTW, WELCOME! Very nice, attractive set of covers. There's that Samuel Clemons/Mark Twain cover I am looking for. I am sure it was intentional for her to use the Airmail covers as they would cost more than regular use covers (I would think). It can be quite amazing what collector's will come up with for their collection and interesting philatelic items in general.

Yes, the domestic surface mail rate at that time was 3c.

There was a box full of stamp albums at this auction. They could not get an individual bid on any one item so they sold them all together. I was there to primarily buy coins (I wound up buying about 50 coins.) But when these stamps came up as a package I could not resist. Also included in this box was a sheet of 50 three cent Idaho Statehood stamps, from 1940, uncancelled and in a frame. The other albums had a variety of stamps (cancelled and uncancelled) and most from the 40's and 50's. Two albums had no stamps. Love the History.