Scott #2 Find

I pick this up for a song at a local estate sale. Not sure they knew what this was. I was interested in the stamp more than the cover. But upon further examination it may be a pretty rare cover. It is dated on a leap year so it had to be 1848.

Doug

Nice find!

List it here (if it isn't already in the census that is...)

http://www.uspcs.org/resource-cente...over-census/

Wow! That's a great find! Congratulations!

wow - that's a dream find - congrats!

Nice find but I would have to see some proof that the straight line FEB 29 is genuine before I paid for it. I think it is very suspicious.

Wow! Congratulations. Everyone's dream.

Looks like a four margin stamp. Great find.

A great looking cover.
I would send it off for a cert.

Art

Bill Weiss called it genuine.

Doug

It just don't look quite right to me for some reason? I would be very skeptical oft his one. If Bill did say it was legit then please scan the ID paper/cert. It just looks too ambiguous to be called correct.

Here is the copy. Bill and I spoke about several things in regards to the cover. The reverse has some writing on it. However, in our final communication about the cover bill wrote "I showed this cover to one of the top postal history experts and his opinion was that it is OK. He pointed out that the addressee was a well-known person in St. Louis in this period (search his name using Google if you want to know more). He felt there was nothing wrong with it at all. He believes it probably WAS used from Washington/DC, and that DC did use a pen cancel on the stamps during that time frame. I believe it can only be 1848 use because that's the only leap year date in the 1847-51 period (the 1847 stamps were demonetized in 1851). So because of that opinion, I think you should just be pleased with your purchase!"

Doug

Congrats on the nice find. Always has to be a couple naysayers.

I'd say "realists" rather than naysayers. :)

Interesting info I am finding on the addressee. Streets, and cities named after the family. Mainly his brothers but here is some interesting stuff

Sublette, Andrew Whitley, mountain man (1808-Dec. 18, 1853). Born at Somerset, Kentucky, he reached St. Charles, Missouri, by 1817, one of five brothers to become famous in the Rocky Mountains. Andrew entered the fur trade in 1830, accompanying William Sublette, his older brother, to the Wind River rendezvous, went to Santa Fe and in 1832 returned to the upper Rockies, a trader. He was a participant in the rivalry with the American Fur Company on the upper Missouri, and the division between the AFC and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company of the beaver area that followed. Andrew became a partner of Louis Vasques in 1835, they establishing a post at the later Platteville, Colorado, in the South Platte River. The partnership was dissolved in 1840. Sublette farmed in Missouri for two years. In 1844 he guided a party to Fort Laramie. With his brother, Soloman, he journeyed to Taos and returned to St. Louis in 1845. He served with Missouri volunteers from 1846 to 1848 at Fort Kearny, then accompanied Beale to California where he remained. He died from injuries received from a grizzly in Malibu Canyon, near present Santa Monica; he had been injured by another the preceding May.

Nothing has been proven here.

I have no doubt the cover and the stamp are genuinely used. The Feb 29 marking is not real because it hasn't been proven to be fake. Come on people. James W. Milgram, M.D. published several articles about advertised markings in the Chronicle. Milgram lists 4 different markings used around this time period in St. Louis and not one of them matches this marking.

It's a genuine #2, and that's what counts, isn't it?