The value is only what a collector would be willing to pay for it and as this would be a very small market I doubt there is a "Market or Retail" value. I doubt that online auction houses (Delcampe & ebay) would be the place to sell something like this as it is certainly a specialty item. You can google Phila Mercury, the Frajola site as many of the leading US Philatelic experts hang out there.
It's gone. I was contacted by a collector of stamp manufacture items in San Francisco and I let it go for $1000.00.
Here is the back story from the buyer:
"I wrote the Mercantile section of the United Postal Stationery Society 20th century catalog. The item you have is a working die. The master dies are at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing. The master dies are used to make working dies. And the working dies are used to emboss and print the stamp on the envelope blank. This die is a flat die and would have been used in a Miehle or "Hartford" machine. The other machines used by Mercantile required curved dies to fit around a cylinder.
As it happens this weekend, the UPSS is having their annual meeting and I have a display on the 2c Mercantile envelopes showing experiments prior to production and the results of the different machines used. Sometimes the shape of how the envelope is cut is a clue. There are differences in the working dies which can help in identifying which machine was used.
Mercantile Corp had never produced stamped envelopes before and the previous contractor was not helpful. Mercantile started from scratch and tried new ways which had not be done before. They experimented with a machine that would start with a roll of paper, print/emboss the stamp, cut out the envelope using cutters like a push lawnmower, gum the flaps, and fold the envelope. From roll of paper to finished envelope by one machine. Their workhorse machine started with a stack of envelope blanks (envelope shapes cut from a stack of paper) and printed/embossed the stamp. Another machine would do the gumming and folding. The other common machine ("Hartford") was purchased from their predecessor (Hartford Mfg Co) which went out of business in 1910. It started with a stack of envelope blanks, printed/embossed the stamp, gummed the flaps, and folded the envelope. The various machines had different speeds and different up-time issues."
And from today:
"Package arrived a few minutes ago. Thank you for including the catalog. The native American items are fascinating. The working die is amazing. The detail that does not show up in the finished envelopes. The fineness of the hair."
Sounds like it went to good hands- I was going to say if you needed a tax right off a museum will usually issue a donation receipt for pretty well what you ask . I've heard of items being donated that were likely worth a few hundred and the museum happily wrote donation receipt for 2500.
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Posted 03/16/2012 2:13 pm
