Eaton's Cinderellas

Just finished the page with AlbumGen

I've had these at some point. They are excellent and under-rated (as in under-valued) in my opinion.

I've heard it said many times that the USPO asked Eaton's to discontinue those World's Fair Stamps because they looked too much like postage stamps and ultimately the general public was illegally using them in lieu of legitimate postage at the time which was becoming a problem.

I've never found anything in print to substantiate that claim. Does anyone have any reference for it?

(I suspect it may have been done "quietly" so as to not draw unwanted attention to the situation, so it may be there isn't anything in writing--at least nothing made public--on the subject.)

It seems that if they were being used as postage there would be numerous examples of that use for sale as cinderellas on cover. Does anyone have a cover(s) with these cinderellas used a postage on them?

I don't remember ever seeing one on cover.

Don

check here

http://alphabetilately.org/C3.html

Interesting covers. Both were posted more than a decade after issue.

Does anyone have one or more contemporary with their issue (1939-1941), even on a cover with correct, authentic U.S. postage? If a threat to postal revenue, perhaps the Secret Service confiscated the letters that they were used upon, but then that should have made the newspapers of the day.

Don

The USA Secret Service confiscates letters with false postage?? I don't think so.

In a democràtic country (as US), the secret service doesn't confiscate anything bearing a cinderella as postage. The PO just considers it without stamps and affix the proper due stamps to be paid by the receiver. Well, at least it's how IMO it should be...