I'm New At This And Recently Inherited Some First Day Covers

I am new at collecting stamps and hope that I posted this in the right forum. I recently inherited a small collection of first day covers and was wondering if any of them were valuable and what the history is behind any of them. I will post two for now, with more pictures later tonight. For now, here's the first two.

Welcome to the site and I'm happy you are keeping the collection. I'm not a FDC collector. It looks like they have been kept well and are in great condition. Keep in mind most people value their items based on that and how many were made(rarity). FDC's were made by many different companies. The 2 you listed were made in high numbers. When you post a picture do a full scan to see which company made it and if it has a cache. Let's see some more of what you have they always look great to see.

More Pictures. The red marking is to blot out the address.

More.

Most of us will have at least a few FDC's in our albums. Mine are mainly from GB but I am also interested in anything from other countries with interesting/unusual/weird/exclusive postmarks/caches. As 1847bill said, the whole cover is sometimes needed to see if it is special or exclusive. The stamp and postmark can be ordinary but the cache can be of special interest.

Many will say FDC's are useless and not worth anything which if you check ebay results they do sell far below the original purchase price--BUT I personally think they are great. As mentioned the pictures (cache/ catchet) on the left is usualy more interesting than the stamp . These covers may never be worth high numbers but they display nicely and you can acquire many at a super fair price. One member here has 200 worldwide FDC's currently on ebay for just $60 which is a very fair price for the lot. Just an FYI - many first day covers released by the post offices are cancelled at 1 particular location, however many collectors would have these cancelled by their local PO's same day which makes for intereting exceptions.

The Girl Scout first day cover cachet may be interesting. It appears that it may have been sent by a company as advertizing. This type of first day cover can be desirable.

Collectors who specialize in first day covers are interested in cachets. For the issues of the 1960s for example, dozens of cachets were produced.

http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot...canadas.html

FDCs with Artcraft or Fleetwod cachets are very common. Handpainted cachets by specific artists can command high prices.

Some issues are very popular regardless of the cachet maker. The 1999 Secretariat fdc sells for $20. The Walt Disney fdc is also sought after.

First Day Cover collecting is more than just about the "First Day of Issue" cancellation. It's worth learning about it.

I recommend that you check out the American First Day Cover Society website for more information:

http://www.afdcs.org/

Most of the covers have "The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company" on them to the left and the address beneath that.

GBfan101,

Welcome to SCF!

People are asking to see the entire cover because the values listed in the Scott Specialized catalog for first day covers are based on not only their condition but also whether or not they have a cachet and/or are addressed. An extract from the Scott Specialized follows:




Here is an example of a first day cover of Scott 929 with cachet and unaddressed:



EDIT: corrected typo

Mine don't have the pictures on the left. I'm assuming that's the cachet right?

That is correct.

Found one in the collection that has a cachet.