Old Mission Mix From The 1930's

Three old cigar box size mission mixes - I remember sorting though one of these many years ago looking for Irish stamps and cancels - none.

Here's what they look like:





the top cover:





bottom labels







and inside





maybe this winter I'll explore further

Although that's before my time, it does bring back memories of H.E. Harris & Co., when they were in Boston, and Sears (then known as Sears, Roebuck & Co.) when they sold stamps.

If you're interested in dating that package, here's an ad taken from Boys Life Magazine in August 1951 advertising the product:



While $2 sounds like a reasonable price, you have to remember it quite a sum back in 1951, in fact, according to an inflation calculator, it's equivalent to more than $16 in today's money, which would have been quite a bit for a box of stamps geared toward kids. (Of course, Sears apparently sold them at a discount of $1.50 based on your scan.)

I'd love to find a couple of boxes of those today, just to get the nice socked-on-the-nose cancels on-paper.

Thanks for the reference, wt1, you've inspired me to look around a bit and I see in 1935 this was advertised in Collier's Illustrated. Looks like almost all of these are early 1930's Europe.

revenuecollector, I'll send you a selection of SON on paper if you let me know what you'd like. I'll contact you after I get my first 50 posts in.

My 1977 Harris catalogue shows the Golden Galleon mixture
at $5.95. 2000 stamps and a "Prize set of stamps" worth
$4 or more!

I find it quite interesting that the "Golden Galleon" mixture was offered for sale by H.E. Harris & Co. for at least some 42 years -- from 1935 to 1977. It must have been quite a popular item to have been marketed for so long.