Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Hi Family,

It is a happy occurrence when two interests come together. Such is the case with my pursuit of American history and philately. Lately, I have been reading several books about FDR in preparation for a trip out to Hyde Park, NY.

Now. I've always had a soft spot for the FDR era. A set of four stamps were issued during the nine months following his death. I have these stamps in my MYSTIC album. However, when I went to look at them, I found they were all squished in with the other commemorative stamps issued in 1945. FDR deserves better. So I set about and designed some MYSTIC pages using ALBUMGEN software. Here's the result:



These were the first FDR stamps ever issued. The FDC shows a date of 1/30/46 which was FDR's birthday. It was also the date the fourth stamp was issued.




The top picture on this page shows a date of 3/4/33; the date of FDR's first inauguration. A member of the APS and a lifelong philatelist, the Society issued a stamp (not postal) broadcasting its approval of FDR for President. Note the Hyde Park postmark which is where he lived and is now buried. The bottom picture shows a date of 4/12/45; the date he died. Note the postmark Washington DC. I am on the hunt for one that is dated 4/12/45 postmarked Warm Springs, GA. This is where he died.





The top postmark is my favorite. It was part of FDR's personal collection which was sold off by H R Harmer in 1946; and is stamped as such on the reverse of the envelope. The bottom stamps are all the other FDR stamps issued to date (that I know of).

Thanks for listening to my rambling.

Jack Kelley

These US issues also come to mind:



And varieties of 1284/1298/1305. I would probably include Eleanor stamps too. There also lots of campaign cinderellas.

Interesting. This has been sitting on my desk for a few months. It came in an auction box lot. I have no info about it, how it came about, etc. The "album page" is obviously very old, the covers were (sort of) mounted with cellophane tape, yikes. A dealer friend suggested the company that liquidated FDR's collection may have put together the correspondence he received at the White House and sold it off to collectors. Does anybody have info on this item?

Thank you, John Becker. I hadn't even considered those stamps. I will now!

Southpaw: Once the word got out, all US Government agencies forwarded their stamps along to FDR. He especially liked the Dept of the Navy. Foreign governments also sent their stamps to him.

Almost, if not all, of the stamps which were sold at the HR Harmer auction were marked as being part of his personal collection. I have the commissioning of the North Carolina which had a storied career during WWII.

Jacck Kelley

Jack,

I greatly admired FDR as well and have often thought it would be fun to put together a topical collection of "FDR on stamps" Maybe I will get around it doing it one day

Would love to hear about your trip to Hyde Park!

Hi Family,

As I indicated in my initial posting, it is a happy occurrence when two interests come together. Such was the case last Saturday where