Love Some Feedback. Covers From My Grandfathers Estate

I got 1000s of stamps and coins from my grandfather but these 3 covers were some that he like the best.

First is a First Flight to the Merchandise Mart Oct 1,1946 Chicago. No real idea about it. Any value or info would be great

Second is an orbited cover from the Challenger launched 8/30/83 and returned 9/5/83

Third and my favorite. A round trip on Lindbergh Again Flies the Air Mail.. sent from Chicago 2/21/28 4am, received Saint Louis 2/21/28 12. Returned same envelope 2/23/28 from St.Louis to Chicago...

Thoughts, comments, value ideas? Thanks for the help. Maybe I'll post some more if anyone has any interest.

The horseshoe cachet on the Lindbergh cover is eye candy, to me anyway.

The first cover looks nice & clean. Helicopter enthusiasts would be interested I'd imagine.

As for the Challenger cover, the number flown should be known, which would be an interesting fact.

Thanks for sharing Natefire14!

The second cover, featuring the Challenger cachet was marketed by the USPS during a high point of popularity for philately. I still have several of those.

First Cover is fairly common, with several versions, but all have the same postmark.

Wonderful covers even if they will not pay off your mortgage. I would encourage you to keep your grandfather's collection as such. It is probably worth much more to you and future generations because they were his than the cash its sales would bring.

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences. Russ

The first one, the helicopter flown cover, is listed in the American Air Mail Catalogue as U.S. Government Flight number 267. This was a follow-on to the Los Angeles area experimental helicopter service. For this Chicago area experimental helicopter service there were 4 routes (northern, western, southern and shuttle routes) that were flown to 48 different outlying stops, each of which had its own special cachet. To have the full set you would need to acquire covers from the other 47 stops. The good news is these arequite common and very inexpensive. They can be had for about $1 each when bought individually, or less when bought in wholesale groups.

Your second cover was actually flown into space on board the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983 which makes it really cool. On the other hand there were about 261,000 of these flown since they wanted to give as many people a chance to buy one when the shuttle returned to earth. They were sold in a really nice folder with lots of photos and one of these covers inserted into some corner slots inside the folder. Do you still have the original folder that this cover came in? One of these covers in its folder with both cover and folder in perfect crisp condition tends to sell in the range of $15 to $30 depending on the day and how much the buyer wants it. One without the folder but where the cover is in perfect crisp condition tends to sell for around $8 to $10 depending on the day and how much the buyer wants it.

Your third cover, the Lindbergh one, is listed in the American Air Mail Catalogue as Contract Air Mail Route #2, flight AM 2S7. The flight started in St. Louis on February 20 and ended at Chicago with intermediate stops in Peoria and Springfield. It then turned around and retraced its route back to St. Louis leaving Chicago on the 21st. Your cover was flown on this return flight from Chicago to St. Louis. It was later forwarded back to the sender in Wisconsin on the 23rd but that forwarding back was not a first flight and it was not flown by Lindbergh. The total number of covers for a complete collection of this particular first flight including intermediate stops and cancellation and cachet varieties would be 2i covers, of which yours is one of the most common. There was so much mail flown that it took several aircraft to carry it all, but Lindbergh did switch planes that he was flying along the way so that it can be said that every cover was carried by him for at least a portion of the flight. The current catalogue value for your particular leg of this flight is $8 so that means you might expect to get about $4 to $5 for one in excellent and attractive condition. Unfortunately, yours has a stain, worn and dogeared corners and edges and very sloppy handwriting all over the face so it would be a challenge to sell though you might find someone willing to pay in the $1 to $2 range for it as a placeholder in their collection until they found a nice one. While unfortunately yours is the most comment variety, some of the very rare varieties from this flight are catalogued in the hundreds of dollars.