Philatelic Souvenir Cards

"Official" souvenir cards (government issued) first came out in 1960 at the First International Philatelic Congress in Barcelona. For several decades collector interest was strong; the Souvenir Card Collector Society (SCCS) was formed in 1981 and is still going. Things have dropped off since peaking in the '90s, but I'm curious to gauge how many collectors have collected or still collect souvenir cards.

The SCCS is finally getting around to creating a website (yes, a little late to the party) and the main feature will be an image library of all intaglio engraved cards issued since 1960 (and a few even earlier).

There are a great many categories of cards, not all of interest to stamp collectors. Here are some philatelic cards I thought everyone might enjoy. Feel free to add some from your collection!

PS category (USPS issued cards)










B category (Bureau of Engraving & Printing)










SO category (Semi-Official - bank note printing companies)

There are also many categories of souvenir cards that are not engraved:

APS cards




ASDA cards




C category (ASDA Inpex cards)




BD category (Duck stamps)




NAPEX cards (actually this one is engraved)




UN category (UNPA cards)

Thanks for posting Rod!

And I forgot to include the 1939 Philatelic Truck sheet. This is considered a "forerunner" in the SCCS numbering system. Not printed on card stock but produced by the BEP.

Wow!

Thanks to Greg for starting this thread (and helping make me aware of the subject), and thanks to Rodney for jumping right in with his own material!

Well done! If I wore a hat, it'd be off to you both!

Thank you, Philatarium! I hope more folks post some cards.

There are also philatelic cards that don't feature stamps ... and some numismatic cards that do.

Nice words Philatarium,

I have always liked them, esp when one can see the card impressed by the die.
I just never knew how to classify them / refer to them.

It also led to understanding where some imperf stamps hail from (on card stock)

I have others (somewhere) I bought a dozen or so at an auction for $3 some time ago.

I remember collecting souvenir cards for several years. Judging from the cards shown in this thread, I probably stopped collecting them in the mid 70s. I eventually sold the entire collection about 10 or 11 years ago. At the time that I stopped, I believe that I had all but one or two of the cards issued to that point. The engraving on some of them is truly beautiful.

Not a souvenir card but I'm still looking to see who produced these Sipex 1966 cinderellas.

JLLebbert, in the 1970s it wouldn't have been too complicated to assemble a complete set of official souvenir cards from the BEP and other sources. But presently, there are well over 1,000 intaglio engraved cards and close to that many non-intaglio cards.

lackemacher, your card would be considered a "private issue" -- not engraved and not issued by the APS or ASDA, that I know of. Any local stamp club or individual could have had these printed. There is an enormous variety of this kind of card -- too many for the SCCS to consider cataloging.

Here's one that showed up in my mailbox just today, along with a bunch of other paper money cards. Now I can say I own an inverted 1869 Columbus stamp!

These are all lovely -- works of art.

Looking forward to seeing more of everyone's contributions!

(Alas, I have none, so will be enjoying vicariously through all of you.)

United States Souvenir Cards thus far......including these.




INTERPEX 73



CENJEX 78

Rod, that's going to be a long list before we're done!

Here are some other cards by American Bank Note Co. Alas, ABNC was bought up and discontinued their souvenir card program in 1996.