Help With An Airmail FDC

Was hoping to get some information about this cover. I purchased a bunch of envelopes and found a few FDC's. I'm not to familiar with FDC's. Was wondering why they put so many stamps on this envelope. Is it fake? Created by someone to send to themselves, or is it just the standard way? Respectfully, Gary

It's not a fake, but an actual first day cover. It just so happened that the 5-cent Airmail Embossed Envelope (UC14) and the 5-cent Airmail Stamp (C32) were both issued on the same day and in the same city (September 25, 1946 in Washington DC). The collector who prepared the shown cover was trying to create a "combination cover" showing both varieties on a single cover and back in the day it was quite common for blocks and plate blocks to be affixed to covers for collecting purposes, even though it overpaid the required postage rate.

They are quite common, as the Scott Catalog suggests there were 396,669 first day covers produced with the "combination" of the C32 stamp on the UC14 embossed envelope.

Thank you wt1, I appreciate the info. They could have mailed a couple coins in that cover and gotten their moneys worth.lol Gary

It is an example of a privately prepared FDC by a collector. Ones that tend to be more collectable are those prepared by various dealers that have attractive and colorful pre-printed cachets that relate to the stamp.

It is a nice example so value is really besides the point. Congrats to you. -Jeffrey

http://www.afdcs.org/

There are collectors who would like to have this cover in their collection. Take a few minutes and browse their website.
Tom

Thought I'd post this image of a FDC that doesn't contain the phrase First Day of Issue. Looks like a souvenir item.

The plane looks nice on that cover gettinold.

modernstamps

Thank you. It's pretty clean considering the age.

That plane looks nice is right. It is a Douglas DC-3 which is the "Douglas Comercial 3" which revoluntionized air travel during the 30's and 40's. Always loved that sleek style of aircraft with its gleaming aluminum skin and graceful curves.

According to an article from popular mechanics.com, the first one flew on December 17, 1935. With the onset of WW11 the last civilian DC-3 was built in early 1943 and most were pressed into military service and the C47 (Navy R4D) started rolling out off the assembly line shortly afterwards. It was basically a modified DC-3 for military use during the war.

The Boeing website states that 455 DC-3's were built for commercial airlines and 10,714 were built as C47's for military transport.
Technical data shows that it had a wingspan of 95 feet, length of 64' 5.5", height of 16' 3.6". It had a ceiling of 20,800' with a range of 1,495 miles and weighed 30,000 pounds. It had two 1200 hp Wright Cyclone radial engines for a power plant and an airspeed of 192mph. It carries a crew of 3 along with a freight load of 3,725 to 4,500 lbs.

Slightly unrelated- the artistic style of the plane on gettinold's cover is very reminiscent of the artistic style in the 1978 book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". For that reason alone I absolutely love it.

A cover I wouldn't have known about if it weren't for gettinold and this thread, so thank you.