U555 FDC With Error? U562 For Reference

Hello all,

Just rummaging through some of my FDCs and postal envelopes and stationary when I came upon this little ditty, which I have never noticed before. How I never saw this is unknown since it seems pretty clear now.

These are for the White House Conference on Youth which was held in Estes Park, Colorado on April 18th-22nd. As my FDC was canceled in DC I was wondering if there were also ones canceled in Estes Park that day as that would seem to make more sense considering the location of the conference.

Any ideas on the error/plate issue and if this one may be valued more than the minimum because of the error? I did a quick search but came up empty.

Thank you all.

There is no error in the first day cancel. The official release site for the stamped envelope was Washington DC on 24Feb1971, 2 months prior to the start of the conference. It was issued to help publicize the conference.

I'm sure there are some special conference cancels that were made during the conference, but they would NOT be first day covers.

Hello KHJ. Thank you for the response and the information on the FDC being before the conference. I think I was unclear on the "error" issue as I was not considering the cancel as an error, but rather an issue in the printing of the design.

What "error" are you referring to? The fact that the "1" in "1971" is a bit blotched in the first scan? If that's the item, I doubt it would be anything more than a "freak" meaning that it may have been over-inked at the time of printing resulting in a less than perfect specimen, but by the same token, it wouldn't have any premium value. In fact, most collectors would prefer a "perfect" specimen rather than the "freak".

Interestingly, the first example (FDC Washington, DC) is Scott U555 with a catalog value of $1; the second example with the postage revalued imprint would be a U562, but since that is in mint condition, the catalog value of that example would be $2.50. This is one of those situations where if you had a period cancelled envelope, it would be worth more used than a mint example would be.

Wt1 that was it. Thank you for the information. I guess I used the wrong word when using "error" as obvious now. Yeah I was looking at those values as well. All the FDCs are interesting to me. I have quite a few, but sadly half do not have cachets, or have the address on them, which I believe takes away from the value on these.

"most collectors would prefer a "perfect" specimen rather than the "freak" "

An EFO collector might well pay more than a pristine FDC. If I saw that offered for sale at $3 at a show, I'd pick it up in an instant.

Thank you Thomas for visiting the thread and your views as well. I find it interesting regardless of worth, most of my collection is that way: minimum but fun to play with and learn from. Thanks again everyone for the help and insights on this one.