Rare ~ US Scott 461 Cover With Inverted Time...

Don... all I know from research is that
Hotel Howard became the Mayfair Hotel,
and the right section of it was torn
down for some reason...

orstampman mentioned watermarking it for
a 461 ID, which, for obvious reasons I
won't do...

Does any method exist for watermarking
an attached stamp that I'm not aware of?

P.S. Gar's handstamp isn't the same as
the one used on the cover... I've already
ascertained going through many listings
there were 3 or 4 or 5 different ones...
ones which include data positioning i.e.
month, date and year (as I have already
mentioned-see above), and others which
have... "SIOUX CITY.IA" and others...
you can look through listings and find
all of the variables... and, that's not
to mention how much more crisp a CDS is
likely to be on a hard postcard versus
an envelope, and, of course the variable
of speed and pressure used by the person
performing the canceling... who knows
how tired the guy was that day... albeit
this one might have been a machined CDS...

Randall

Gary... look at your own posting...

Notice the large size of the oval
in the 9, and the thinner opening
in the top part of the 5... those
same features exist on the cover,
even though your cancel is a
completely different handstamp...
the differences prevail in terms
of how the tops of the two are
formed...

The overlap you did only shows
the fonts are the same size, which
is to be expected... the downward
angle of the lower curve of the 5
and where is starts is different
than the 9, and it travels further
down, and, on the left side of the
tail, it exceeds the leftmost part
of the top of the 5... whereas the
bottom tail of the 9 aligns with
the top portion...

Randall

What I don't understand is how it can be sent in for verification, but truly couldn't be verified unless the stamp was checked for a watermark. I have read up on this and some people remove it then put it back.
One guys information was;"'" I own a Morley-Bright Inst-a-tector watermark detector,they make 2 types - the roll-a-tector is the other....I have not used that one.
The Inst-a-tector works well for most countries except a few, one being US;
With slow and deliberate practice you can make it work on SOME US issues, however;
I have read comments by some who attempt to use it on stamps on cover, which I can't imagine it working since the watermarks are obviously on the backs of the stamps - and I HAVE tried."'"

Hi, Gary... oh, yes... I recall hearing
sometime back about the Morley-Bright
detector... unfortunately, I haven't heard
anyone ever state whether it's fantasy or
reality... "if it's too good to be true", etc...

The one below, I would believe in, but hardly
cost effective for most people...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAFE-9886-S...em5890b73291

And P.S. ... there's no way on God's Green
Earth I would ever consider removing the
stamp and putting it back on... (that) to
me would be doing the unthinkable...

Well... after going through hundreds
of listings for Sioux City, there's
a good 20 different round stamps...
so making comparisons from one to the
other for character types, etc just
doesn't hold any water, unfortunately...

And, it appears I can't find one with
the same data arrangement of the one
on my cover... so it (as well) could
turn out to be a rarity... who knows...

I'm ordering a book of Sioux City postal
history... it'll be interesting to see
if it's there...

Per Gar...

"What I don't understand is how it can be sent in for verification,
but truly couldn't be verified unless the stamp was checked for a
watermark. I have read up on this and some people remove it then put
it back."

(IMHO) I would think there would be very serious
philatelic ethical issues coming into play if
a stamp was lifted from a cover and placed back
onto it... the knowledge of that alone (even if
certed) would (in my mind) have the potential of
affecting its value... and, if too much gum was
possibly lost in the lifting process, how would
the stamp be re-attached?

I'm certainly no expert, but (even with all of the
re-gummers out there), I would think *legitimate gum*
would not be something in an expertizer's repertoire...
(not to mention what might be the exact and correct
formulation for any particular stamp, let alone the
age and period)... and *there*, my friends, is where
I would feel some MAJOR ethical issues come to bare,
and not a *game* I would (ever) choose to play in...

Wow, I live in Sioux City. I had no idea a book on Sioux City postal history even existed. I don't know anything about the hotel in question, however. I'm far from a city historian.

Hi, Artful... yes... there's 2 books,
in fact... I'm talking to the seller
right now to buy one or the other in
the morning...

Randall

it looks like 1919 to me but a came across some info on the picture on the back of the cover. The original circa-1912 building was expanded with a 6-floor tower annex to the north in 1919. The building was demolished in the 1960's.

I have one of those "most be SC 461 because of the date" mysteries.
I always figured that the date was faulty, perhaps the 1916 is a partially inverted 1919, or mangled 1918. Any comment? [bottom is cropped to fit 100k limit, representative Joseph Cannon served all through that era].

Nice... I'd say 99.9% if not 100%
461... ball's in your court... you
know what decision will be needed
to be made...

I vote for the postmark being 1918. I doubt it's 1919, as the shape of the bottom of the first "9" in the year doesn't match the last digit at all. Further, if you read the opening sentence of the card, the writer says: "We visited the capitol Monday...". A quick check of a period calendar confirms that March 26, 1918 was indeed a Tuesday, so the date makes perfect sense.

(Note: If it were 1916, the day of the week would have been a Sunday.)

True... however, the writer could have been
referring to Monday, March 20th, 1916...

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar...=3&country=1

Anything's possible, but given the state of things in the mid 1910s, I would find it highly unlikely that someone would be writing a postcard to their grandfather almost a week after the subject they are writing about. I don't think people typically had extended vacations back then, so the 1918 date seems much more plausible.

As you've stated... "Anything's possible"

For what it's worth, keep in mind the postmark
is a machine cancel, not a hand CDS...

P.S. ... if you click on the image and enlarge
it, you'll find the 6 is *clearly* not an 8...