Charles Warren Fairbanks Empty Covers

At a small provincial stamp auction here in the UK about 15 years ago,I obtained a lot containing empty covers all addressed to members of C W Fairbanks (vice president) family.Ive always wondered how they turned up in the UK in bulk 30+covers.Any ideas ?

There are many ways that all kinds of covers wind up in all parts of the world. One possibility is that a stamp collector or dealer could be involved in selling them. I am not sure that C.W. Fairbanks related covers would be considered to be very collectible today unless they contained their original letters and if those letters contained really politically juicy material about Roosevelt. American Vice Presidents are not normally considered to be very interesting since they have no power other than they casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate after being told by the President how they were going to vote. And during Fairbank's term there were no tie-breaking votes at all. Otherwise, a Vice President's only real function is to be the "spare" in case the President dies or becomes 100 percent incapacitated. In terms of political power Fairbanks had significantly more during his one term as one of the two US Senators from Indiana (there are a total of 100 Senators - 2 from each state) - an office he held before he became Vice President for one term in 1905. Because of all of this, unless you can find a descendant from Fairbanks' family my guess is you may not find much interest in your covers beyond the value of their stamps on cover.

As for the covers in collector hands, I do not know a specific answer for Fairbanks, but it could be as simple as a secretary saving stamps for their own collection or for another collector. Also consider museums, archives, and historical societies in the past, as well as stamp & autograph collectors, sometimes separated covers from the letters and discarded/sold the envelopes as historically unimportant or to save file space. Do not be surprised to find the matching letters in an institutional collection.




Minor corrections. Fairbanks served 8 years in the Senate consisting of a full term March 4, 1897-March 3, 1903, then the first two years of his second term, March 4, 1903- March 3, 1905, before resigning to become VP. Between the admission of Utah in 1896 and Oklahoma in 1907, there were 45 states. Thus throughout his Senate time, there were a maximum of 90 Senators, minus any vacancies.

Here is one of his preprinted Senate franks on a outbound cover: