Old Stamp Dealer Covers

Here are a few more. I included an APS overseas.

Here's a Scott from 1921

First two pictures, Honduras postal card mailed in NYC by 'Topical Paradise' . 3rd one, Gimbels stamp and coin dept. I can still remember being 8 or 9 and buying/staring at stamps at Gimbels. 25 cents on a stamp probably kept me happy for the shopping trip.








edited to fix 3rd picture.

Here's an interesting stamp dealer cover with a lot going for it.

Mailed by stamp dealer J. H. HOUSTON, May 9, 1910, at Washington DC, registered, with the Form 1549A Domestic Registration label #61989 (This experimental label used only 1907-1910) to London, England. Routed to New York, NY, where the red/white Exchange label 29266 added, and sent onward to London. Opened and Examined there, probably to confirm contents, and resealed.

Front:


Reverse:


The use of these Domestic Registration labels is uncommon. Only about 60 post office participated in the experiment. Fewer than 500 covers recorded for all post offices.

A database of covers with these Form 1549A labels is part of a community project on Stamp Smarter. https://stampsmarter.org/features/N...549Home.html

If you have one of these covers, please contact us to include your cover in our database.
Mike

The New England Stamp Co cover is addressed to Eliot Perry, one of the great philatelic writers and dealers ever.
https://classic.stamps.org/HOF-1970#Perry

And here is a cover from Elliott Perry.

If not for stamp dealer letters, there would be some missing unique postal history items in one of may areas of interest; two commercial sendings and one philatelic inspired sending, with parcel post stamps....

HF Coleman produced the unique 15 cent 7-1-1913 FDC (has been publicized in the philatelic press as well as pictured in Henry Gobie's book, US Parcel Post A Postal History with Henry the discoverer.) One handshake with Henry Gobie and I was promised the item at a set price when he was done with his Registered Mail Exhibit. It was just a normal commercial cover which happened to mailed that day.

The unpublished unique 3 cent block of four on PSE 7-1-1913 was sent by a major PSE dealer of the period. That only has seen the light of day in philately for less than 20 minutes in 1997 at Pacific '97. It walked into Pacific '97 and up to Kirk Wolford's, Kirk's Stamp Company's Booth where it was the first booth it was offered for sale. Kirk immediately purchased it, left his booth and walked the Pacific '97 floor looking for me on his way to place it in auction with James McCusker. Kirk found me as I with my parents had just entered the floor. He came up clearly excited showed the cover, named a price. However, my cost was zero; my mother purchased it for me as my birthday was the following month. I have only showed it to two other parcel post collectors who visited my home. It too was just a commercial cover which happened to be mailed that day.

Chase (as in 1851 Chase, while a collector also sold material, thus a dealer) sent a machine postmarked 12-31-1912 two cent solo Parcel Post on a letter. At one time several such pre 1-1-1913 mailing where known with them disappearing from philately in the mid-1930s. The Chase cover was purchased in the mid-1930s, later placed into one of two suitcases of parcel post postal history and stored in an attic for nearly 80 years before the suitcases were rediscovered. circa 2010 with the Chase cover, now the only surviving known pre-January 1, 1913 cover. It can be found in the PF Certificate Data Base (if not there it was certified by APEX, the joys of memory). It and a Q-2 7-1-1913 FDC were the reasons I and my friend, a parcel post collector, the late Scott Ward, purchased the suitcase contents of Q1-9 covers and split them 50-50.. The other suit case was just Q-2 1st class covers and Q-1 post 7-4-1913 first and third class items which were later scattered among various retail dealers. All of the suitcase covers on both suitcases had pencil notations on the back listing from whom, when it was purchased and some brief usage notes.

A few Stamp Dealer Covers
Mason & Wells of Philadelphia



and a similar cover for Mason & Co.



According to Steven Belasco's article in the USPCS Chronicle, the Mason & Co. ad covers date after the Mason & Wells ad covers.

A later ad cover for E.B. Sterling (author of an early revenue stamp catalog). The horseshoe shaped black mark is actually a sticker covering an image of a postage stamp (he apparently got in trouble for the image of a stamp)



here is a scan of a cover without the sticker from a Rumsey sale

Fascinating ! I enjoyed that.

Here is a modern dealer cover from 1993.



It contained Dan Mayo's auction catalog mailing, a 7 ounce rate during the 2/3/1991-12/31/1994 period:
0.29 for the first ounce
0.23 x6 for the additional ounces
Exactly totaling 1.67

Is it philatelic? Shades of gray.

No doubt some will emphatically say "yes" because it was sent by a collector/dealer, regardless of any other factors.

And no doubt some will say "no" equally as loud since it was paid with a minimum number of current definitive stamps conducting the normal business operations of a company with no particular philatelic intent.

What if this envelope were franked identically and sent by a local plumbing company with their supply catalog?

Regardless of the camp you fall in, this cover is set aside to "age and mature" for the next few decades like a Prexie or Liberty series postal history item with an unusual franking. Show me another like it!