I Keep Telling Myself, I Don't Collect Covers

I may be in denial the more I look at my box of covers the more I like.Dated March 1831

I know for a FACT you do not collect covers.

Please rectify the situation by sending me all your covers immediately!

I happen to know ratio411 is in cover rehab.

You need to send them to ME, for re distribution.

I like that cover especially because of the obsolete abbreviation for Massachusetts. Today, "MS" would get it to Mississippi.

Would be easier to send 'em within the US.

yes I have a us address too so no problem :)

postmarked from Boston going to Augusta Maine

Thats all we need ANOTHER cover collector around here !!

I denied it for a while, too. Now, I'm willing to admit publicly that I'm addicted to postal history, though to date I have been able to stay within my main areas of interest and merely expand those to include covers.

I think for some of us its a natural progression !

Think of it this way:
We would all love to have perfect, unused, unblemished MINT stamps.
However, it is cost prohibitive for the most part.

So, if you MUST collect used stamps, wouldn't you rather have them
displayed on the envelope that they were postally used to carry?

I say 'yes'...
Not to mention they are often more valuable that way.

Covers have a lot going for them. If you can "solve" the storage/display dilemma, they are very lovely. I recently dove into the Liberty Series cover pool, and bought the binder and pages to display them. I think I am addicted now.

Covers breathe life into a collection. I'm afraid that page after page of pristine mint stamps in nice little mounts chills my soul. Used are better. But a display of, say a nice mint block, perhaps with any relevant sheet margin markings, some nicely used specimens, and to cap it all, the stamp properly commercially used on a cover really does gladden the heart.

The stamp on this card (Cochin SG 43) is the sort of thing you buy for a couple of dollars a hundred used.



The card's worth very little, and it's damaged as well - but so much character. It makes what would have been a very dreary page come alive. Here is the evidence of real people using, and abusing, the stamp, for real correspondence.

Of course, storing and displaying covers is a problem. But it's a challenge to be overcome, rather than a reason not to collect covers. (And for the record, my collection - covers and all - is entirely in stockbooks.)

Yes I'm guilty too I sent so many covers to Phil I think they were coming out of his ears ,I tell my self I don't need to collect them any more and the next thing I do you guest it buy more covers ,I now have no more cover page sleeves and still I buy more covers .
If it's not bad enough with the Alzheimer's I'm starting to become a covers junkie.

Ah, music to my ears, nuggethill. No headbanging required. Covers are that lofty category of philatelics that allows most for creativity, aesthetics, complementary beauty (complementary to the stamp of course) and real character. If I found a cover like that in a dealer's cover box I would do my best to own it.

Yes, it does need to go to Mississippi :)