Can FDCs Be Used After The Issue Date ?

Having said all of the above, does anyone care to explain this one? It's one of the few first day cancelled items I have that has been postally used thereafter:



An anomaly? Or due to a lazy or unalert postal clerk that let it through? Perhaps. But I have 3 or 4 of them done the same way.

Right or wrong, I do seem to recall that someone had told me years ago that these specific first day cancelled postal cards did have postal validity after the first day of issue as the first day cancel did not specifically indicate a city/state and were basically CTO's provided overseas at the Brussels Philatelic Exhibition and sold in the US through the former "Philatelic Sales Division" and therefore did continue to carry its US postage value when used in the United States.

I was never able to confirm or deny that statement, but it would appear to be a plausable explanation given that the card was used a year and a half after the first day cancel was applied.

I also collect them for Canada and recently picked up a bunch thru 70's-80's . Not something you want from a value perspective but if your collecting a complete country and trying to get all varieties of said countries stamps its pretty hard to count out the FDC's . I won't buy any new issues (maybe the $10 blue whale) but would like to complete as much as I can for Canada. Also have to admit some of the catchets are great . Also posted this one in the strike thread.

That one is kind of interesting, because they must have had all of the cacheted envelopes ready for the issue and then the postal strike forced the date of issue change which prompted the typewritten statement on the bottom of the envelope.

I was referring to very old Chinese FDCs such as this as to wheather these could still be used ...

jagsp: The cover you posted would not be valid for postage since it is cancelled. Further, even if they could, I doubt many would want to use it for postage anyway, since the cover is very nice just as it is and I would venture to guess that many would prize that piece on its own merit.

Also keep in mind that some countries demonetize their stamps after a period of years, making even older mint stamps invalid for use as current postage.

Just because it has no address doesn't mean it never did. All the 1960s FDCs my uncle sent me came through the mail with Peel-able address labels so, once removed, they look unaddressed. All my FDCs came in the regular mail.

That was some good piece of information and suggestions..

cheers!