1893 30¢ Columbian On 1928 Zep Cover

I love finding these weird usages. This card is the return flight of the Graf Zeppelin from it's first U.S. flight. Return address is Burger and Co. which I believe was a stamp dealer in NYC. So, this is my first Scott #239 on cover. But not really what I would have expected.

Q.How do you take a $500 stamp and turn it into a $20.00 stamp ?

A. Use it on a contrived cover 30 years out of date.

That is of course assuming it was never hinged when applied to the cover. My 2009 still shows it at $270 for hinged.

1927 Scott catalog lists the 30 cent Columbian at 1.75 mint and 1.50 used. Good chance at had disturbed gum, so using it was not a bad decision at that time.

It certainly was not even close to a 500 dollar stamp at the time. The bit of reading that I've done on this, tells that the Colombian issues were not highly valued at the time. And also, in my limited experience, I'm finding that many Zep covers were "contrived".
See pics below.







I'm glad they did. It will have a space of honor in my zep cover collection.
Something for everyone in this hobby eh?

I don't get the "contrived cover" remark. Or the bias I sense against philatelic usage. Can somebody explain it to me?

blcjr, for me, I've decided to concentrate on Zeppelin flown covers, so...this will be part of my world. This cover was put together and used over 80 years ago. I will always favor uniqueness and I feel the above cover fits the bill. All the stickers and stamps and postmarks seem to be proper to get this card onto the Zep and across the pond.
I may through further research find that's not true. *shrug*

All zeppelin covers are philatelic. It was clearly flown, it has the receiving marks to prove it. The bias against philatelic mail comes from the fact that it was not "legitimate mail" and it was often not paid with a legitimate rate. It was created by a collector for a collector (often the same person), created strictly to be put into the collection. However when the stamps become scarce enough or when philatelic usages are all there is, such as certain FDC's and zeppelin covers, then people quietly pretend that they are not really philatelic and then they are worth big bucks.
This is certainly an unusual franking, but it is also certainly worth much less than an in period on cover thirty cent Columbian would be worth. And there is an excellent chance that the stamp had a thin or no gum as well, since $1.75 in 1928 is equal to about $24 today, but the relative average income of $1.75 then is about $114 today (it would cost $114 today to buy what $1.75 cost then) One would have to work enough hours to earn about $94 today to earn that $1.75 in 1928. So it was real money.

Yes, Burger & Co. were stamp dealers in New York City. The stamp in question has merely decent centering and who knows about original gum etc. If this was a large dealer of the day, they may have had many dozens of these stamps sitting in stock.

Like I mentioned, I had read somewhere that the Colombians were largely ignored back in the day. So to do this, was probably no big sacrifice of inventory.
Would love to find a 240 used similarly.

And another note. The addressee is Mr. Heinrich Koehler. He held his first stamp auction in 1913. They're still in business today!
This keeps getting better.

The difference between commercial mail and philatelic mail is that philatelic mail was sent through the mail system with the sole intention of creating a collectible item. Commercial mail is paying the proper rate with contemporaneous stamps and postmarks.

As mentioned all Flight covers are philatelic by definition. Assuming the Columbian had thins or disturbed gum is as accurate as assuming it had full original gum. Don't know who sent it but one never knows and covers like the one shown here will always make good collectible items as Zeppelins are the most sought after flight covers.

It's not that Columbians were ignored. There were actually a number of articles in the philatelic press asking for them to be issued for a few years leading up to the anniversary. It's more that the face values were very high; the set was a LOT of money for the time so it took a long time for the higher values to be absorbed by the philatelic community. The set in 1893 cost the equivalent of about $437 in today's money. The average salary in 1893 was about $1.68 per day.

Stallzer,

I know the difference. What I don't get is a bias I perceive (in general, not with you specifically), that philatelic mail or covers are less "genuine" than commercial covers. I don't see it that way. They are just two different ways stamps have been used. Moreover, philatelic usage has done a lot, over the years, to stimulate interest in stamp collecting. It has also been associated with encouraging the development of technology in delivering mail. In the case of dirigibles, it was a development that was short-lived. But the long association between aviation and philately is a different matter. There are lots of different reasons (and ways) to collect stamps, and lots of different reasons to put them on a cover. To single out a usage as "contrived" seems unnecessary.

revcollector,

Nobody here is pretending that this is not philatelic mail. Frankly (is there a pun here somewhere?), I cannot imagine anyone "pretending" that philatelic usage is anything other than what it is. What I don't get is the notion, as I said in reply to Stallzer, that this makes it any less "genuine." It is what it is, and philatelic usage has a long history and appeals to many collectors. Why treat it as less authentic than commercial usage? It should be recognized for what it is not, but also for what it is.

As for the value of the stamp and its usage, if the value was $1.75 in 1928, it had kept up with inflation since 1893, and then some. Whether it was some fault in the stamp that caused it to be used, or not, I doubt we will never know.

Nor does that matter, really. Stamps used on philatelic covers are usually (but probably not always) chosen with some care. It doesn't take a lot of speculation to imagine that this stamp was used for a reason, equating the dirigible flights as somewhat like the Columbus charting a path to the New World. I'm not sure when it began -- I'd be interested to know, if any body does -- but philatelic covers have a long history of accompanying exploration and world travels. While it is not what I look for (I favor airmail stamps), I think the Columbian on this cover gives it an original and possibly unique cachet (another play on words).

Basil

There are many rates/uses which are essentially non-existant were it not for collector-inspired covers sent through a controlled-mail environment to get saved. The line between philatelic and commercial mail can be blurry.

Happily. philately is a big tent, where only a few openly disparage those of us who collect FDCs, flight covers, used stamps, revenues, meters, topicals, or Christmas seals. Yes, I have some of them all. Collect what you like.

Basil, it's not that philatelic mail is less genuine it's the fact that it is intentionally sent through the mail to create a collectible item. To the purist postal history collector I doubt you'll find many philatelic covers in their collections. Commercial mail usually consists of solo usage paying the proper rate which for certain overseas rates make the covers much more valuable.

Basil, there is another angle on philatelic usage that has given it a black eye. In the late nineteenth century and early days of the twentieth, dealers would sometimes try to 'legitimate" proofs, essays and minor varieties as stamps by sending them through the mail. In some cases these items paid the postage, and in some cases they were merely along for the ride so they could get a cancel. This practice muddied the waters about the status of those things, and was discouraged from the get go by the most authoritative dealers and writers. (let alone the government wherever it was caught)

Here is an example of such:



This purple "stamp" is a lithographed essay of the Philadelphia Bank Note Company and was never issued nor valid for postage. The envelope has been reduced from the left, but note the reference to a "Stamp Dealer" that remains from the return address.




There was also a problem that authentic, "in period" uses of some stamps were all but unheard of (such as the 90c of the 1850s (#39), early newspaper stamps, and others. Attaching these to a cover in order to get an authentic cancel, out of period, has never been viewed as legitimate usage, especially for #39 which was demonetized in 1861.