Just Got An Album Full Of Pre 1860 S Covers.

stampcrow, can you tell me which ones specifically, I have some trouble making out the from in the cursive (I wasn't brought up to learn these darn squiggles... at least not in the Latin script)

If you mean the blue envelope, that has a whole letter in it! It's actually very legible, and it's clearly been removed and read many times, it falls open and closed easily, though there are not holes in the folds or anything. *** Private information removed by Staff. Please do not post your address/email/phone number etc. *** Or I can upload a pic here but I don't know how well you'll be able to read it...

Question: was Scott 11 issued in 1855? if so, does that mean all my pre 1855 letters are stamped with Scott 10 or Scott 10A by definition?

I think it's worth the time to learn what you have so you can price by what you think fair. As for eBay, unless you have people who follow you, I wouldn't trust the auction format. Said because Ivan have listings up that only get 3-4 views, so obviously no bidding war is gonna happen. Plus almost 90% of eBay sales are buy it now. If you are a dealer with followers, ok go for it. In fact, tell us your seller name so maybe we can grab some beauties cheap!

I am a dealer, but I usually only sell excess EFOs that I don't want to keep or have duplicates of. I'm not sure what "cheap" is - I mean, I can tell you my eBay name, - the link to my shop is in my profile - but now I'll just presume that whatever price you message me with is a ripoff XD

The earlier covers without stamps are probably the most interesting not only for their city, state, and date but postal markings and content when available. They are from the era of many small post offices some of which are very hard to find. The NYC, Boston, and other larger cities are common; however, when mailed to a smaler post office, are better than most.

I will cherry-pick a quote from another poster above:



And then apply it to this 1855 cover you posted in this thread:
http://goscf.com/t/84322&whichpage=1#779013

It illustrates the art of selling postal history on ebay in their two major format options:
Buy-it-now: Do you have the time and interest in learning the most important aspects of this cover including the exact ID of the stamp through its plating characteristics ultimately to arrive at some price? Or ...

Auction format: Where a sale can be accomplished with minimal time/knowledge investment yet still reach the majority of those who will be interested and reach an honest sale price.

Consider a listing with 3 good scans: the whole cover, a close-up of the stamp and a scan of the contents accompanied by a written description along the lines of "1855 folded cover with imperforate 1851 issue adhesive stamp with bottom sheet margin, not plated for exact ID, but will be a Scott 10, 10A, 11, or 11A. Lengthy letter headed Red Fork, Desha County, Arkansas and mailed with manuscript cancel from Napoleon Ark (both DPO) addressed to Danville, Kentucky. Sender is XxxxX, recipient is YyyyY with interesting content of the letter mentions ...."

With all the threads/posts in this forum, any ebay lots with the words 1851, plated, 10, 10A, 11, 11A , the geographic connections, etc., will be found by the potential buyers who have creative and extensive searches built to find stamps/covers in their areas of interest. Start the bidding at 9.99 and sit back.

Axmxc yes the 'blue envelope' is one of three that I was referring to. It appears there are two others sent to the same person in Kentucky. Jacobs? Maybe.

Edit to add: It appears the covers sent to John Jacobs originated at Napoleon, Arkansas.

Also.., the stamp on the Newark NJ cover is interesting, at least in your photos, enough that you might want to post a better scan of it in the thread "Show Your US 1851-57 Imperforate Stamps".

I agree it would be shameful to destroy these. They are collectable on their own. I do agree they will bring $5 to $10 each on ebay. Nice find I wish you well with them.

Speaking in overly broad terms, covers of this era tend to have greater value if they are sent from places west of the Mississippi than eastern ones. All of these seem to be sent from eastern cities. The one semi-exception is the one from Albany to San Francisco. While this is an eastern city sending, it has some extra interest in that it would have to have gone all the way to San Francisco in that era which would be an interesting study on what route it took.