New Mexico Cancel

I'd like to know if the Mountain Air, New Mexico Post Office is a DPO, and if so, how many covers are recorded from that post office. Can anyone supply me with a web sight where I can find this information? I picked up a post card this weekend with a #331 and a Mountain Air 1910 cancel. It territorial, but I don't have info. on the post office or possible scarcity of the cancel. Thanks!

Jim Forte's website shows Mountainair (one word) in service from 1903 to present. He has two covers for sale at www.postalhistory.com/result...o=Mountainair

Thank you for the help!

As stated earlier, the post office at Mountainair, NM is still around today:



For the record, it would be virtually impossible for any post office to track how many covers are recorded for any given post office. For DPOs from the late 1800s and early 1900s the best one can surmise is that the fewer years the post office was open, the fewer the number of covers.

wt1, thanks for the input. I didn't know how/who tracks this. Harmer-Schau Auction Galleries make mention of "Helbock Rarity # so and so" in their catalogues. In the catalogue for the sale of the Patrick Murphy Collection of the one cent Washington/Franklin Issues (06/25/2004), there are three New Mexico Terr. covers. All three are DPOs. Two state in the description that they are the only "reported" covers from those towns. I Googled Helbock, and James Lee has 8 volumes by Richard Helbock on "U.S. Post Offices" which list the offices, locations, yrs. of operation and a rarity factor (I guess for "reported" covers?). I suppose somehow he's tracking covers reported to him or gets the info. somewhere to establish a rarity factor. Maybe he is figuring the rariety by the number of years the post office is open? I was asking to see if there was another source to go to for that. I don't think I want to spend $220.00 for the books. Thanks again!

They had a precancel device -----

Before Helbrock passed he used to sell books, CD's and downloads. I have some of each, but I don't have New Mexico. The downloads were by far the cheapest way to go and he had regional issues, such as Midwest, Southwest, etc. You could save money by finding those. I don't know if anyone took over the business after he died.

As far as scarcity goes he went into detail on how scarcity was figured, but loosely it was based on size of town, length of time the post office was open and time period of operation. The scarcity index went from 0 for operating post offices and 1 through 9 for the rarest closed post offices. If you start chasing these things keep in mind when something is listed with a scarcity of 8 or 9 it does not mean it actually is known to exist. The number represents it's likely rarity and many items listed as scarcity 8 or 9 are not known to exist at all.

The flaw in Richard's system is that his scarcity index does not take into account that your 1910 cover is obviously scarcer than one mailed from Mountianair yesterday. He freely admits that in his books and told me he had tried to factor that in, but it was very complicated to come up with something realistic that could factor all variables.

Thanks pjsstamps. That clear it up a good bit. Still wondering though about the auction listing as "only one reported" from any particular town--reported to who?. But at least I see where the rarity factor come in. I'm not really chasing these but when one comes my way at less that a Dollar, I'll pick it up--got to be worth more than that. Thanks everyone!