Oh-My... It's Official

A 6c Department of Interior official stamp was used to pay the 1-2 oz letter rate on this cover
sent from the Pension Office in Washington, D.C. to a U.S. Pension Agent in Cleveland, Ohio.



Showing a bust of Abraham Lincoln, the stamp is neatly tied by a quarter-wedge fancy cancel.

Here is an unused War Department stamped envelope, for use by the Signal Service, U.S. Army.



This envelope will be used for the transmission of Monthly Reports, Form 125 B.



Use one of these to mail a personal letter, and you could be fined the cost of 10,000 envelopes.

I found a 2c Department of Interior on cover. The cover was sent from the General Land Office
in Washington, D.C. to a lawyer in Washington named Junius Simmons. The handwriting near the
stamp indicates the correspondence had some bearing on a case. It is hard to read; perhaps it
is "Rusell vs. Rawles."



So now I have the 2c, 3c, and 6c Department of Interior stamps on cover. I suspect that finding
the rest of the set on cover will be much harder.

You have such cool stuff Tom.

Dianne

Thanks Tom its very enjoyable looking at the stamps and covers you post and with the stories that accompany them I tend to learn more every day regards Harry

Icommend youall on your scans they are wonderful! Iwillhave to go into the dark corner of my closet and pull out those BOB stamps that I set aside and never really looked at. This group has been an inspiration!!

Thank you Dianne, Harry and Peg! Looking forward to seeing your BOB stamps, Peg!

I found one more official on cover, the 6c Treasury.



These covers are really tough to locate!

I've noticed that most of these would fit right into the fancy cancellation thread Tom and they are all very nice materegards Harry

Are these stamps used only y government agencies here in the US? thanks

Yes they are legal for use only by government agencies and only to carry mail related to government business. There is also a modern series of these official stamps which are very rarely used and they are also difficult to find on cover.

Thanks for the info t360

I recently won this set of Navy Department proofs on India paper. The dealer was selling a number of good-looking official proof sets on ebay and the bidding was quite fierce.

Congratulations..they look very pristine to me

Wow Tom is that a full set of mint

I have pitifully few of the older officials, but I do have a nice selection of used modern officials that have taken me quite a few years to collect. I have a few covers with modern officials. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where they are at the moment.