And Now For Something A Little Different

This is an event cover for the dirigible USS Macon. Made by the cachet maker Aiglon for Oaklnd/Alameda Chamber of Commerce. US Airship event cover are very common and can be easily obtained, but this one, listed in Mellone's airship catalog, was tied to a business reply envelope to Clyde Welch, himself a cachet maker. The reverse has another cachet for a USS Constitution stamp. The Mellone lists 700 were make, so this one is common. Does anyone have any history on why a business reply envelope was used? Apparently this was not the only time this was done. yakboomer

My guess is just to make a cross collectable or just something a bit more interesting than a run-of-the-mill cachet cover. That is just my guess and no actual research has been done on the subject although that's usually the case.

I agree that it was probably done purely for Philatelic purposes. Roessler wasn't the only one back then that showed significant creativity in providing some wild cover combinations. Very neat to look at, though, thanks for sharing.

It obviously didn't work, as the cover arrived postage due. Which seems odd.

The postage due cancellations are not tied to the cover. Are they really supposed to be there?

Postage Due stamps are frequently "precanceled" by roller cancels in full sheets before applied to the covers. Maybe the 1st class permit only covered a part of the postage. What was the going airmail rate for that era? 6 cents if I recall correctly. Maybe the permit only covers the first 2 cents. Just a thought to throw out there.

He probably intentionally under franked it to make it more attractive to the B.O.B collectors and just to add a little flavor possibly? Or he was just bad at math...lol

The thing is, my Mellone catalogue illustrates this cachet as being on a business reply envelope to Welch, and it says 700 were created, which to me means all 700 were on business reply envelopes.

Ok, 699?