What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

I received this mixed franking cover which fits into two of my areas of interest, Great Britain, including the Channel Islands occupation issues, and famous microbiologists. The German stamp features Robert Koch, and I didn't realize it until I received it, but despite the occupation at the time, the German stamp was probably not added to the cover until it was received in Germany , (in Weimar, to be exact), since it has not been cancelled with a German cancellation, either Feldpost or in Germany itself.

Technically not today (Memorial Day) but within the past few days, I received something I bought from one of my favorite dealers: Apfelbaum in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, a 4 generation family owned business. They have good material and good prices. My latest purchase is a collection from 1922 to about 1990 and includes 726 of the first 766 stamps issued by the Republic of Ireland (Eire). They are on Steiner pages and in a binder which I will replace, but the collection cost me just over $100, which works out to just 15 cents a stamp, and my benchmark for if I've received a good deal is if there is one stamp in a collection that catalogues for as much as I paid for the whole lot, and that is the case here because the collection includes Scott 92, the 1934 2 penny vertically perforated coil stamp, which catalogues $125 used. It's a bit thin in the early overprinted issues, especially the high value "Seahorses" but it's a good basis for expansion. The mint never hinged stamps from decimalization onward alone add up to over 100 pounds, so those alone would have cost more than I paid just in face value. A new country to collect!

It looks like a nice price on the Ireland pages. I see more and more collections on ebay on Steiner pages.

2 items for my `Stuff I like collection`

First a Switserland 1951 Lunaba Block on Lunaba cover, special postmark not fdc.




Second a used DDR-East Germany postcard Michel P 64 a 02. Not as easy as one would think.

We received a certified letter but the postman forgot to obtain our signature so the card was still attached to the back of the envelope. It was well marked as a certified letter.

The June 2019 issue of The American Philatelist. My first since re-upping my membership in the APS. I'm looking forward to reading it over the next few days.

Dale

FYI:

For registered mail (decades ago and, probably, today), letter carriers signed for each individual registered item, as did every clerk who handled that registered item along the way.

For certified mail, a clerk noted the total number of "certs" they passed to each letter carrier each day, and that was that. At the end of your tour, you dumped the signed receipts (and undelivered certs) at the clerk's window, and that was that.

Why so casual? Certification fees were low, the amount of time it took for a letter carrier to hand-deliver each cert was high, the number of times that a sender ever complained about a missing receipt was infinitesimal, and the post office was not on the hook for the value of a missing cert.

Once every couple of months, a registered item (always from a foreign country) would just show-up in the mail stream like any other piece of mail.

But every couple of days - on some routes, just about every day - a certified item (of domestic origin) would just show-up in the mail stream like any other piece of mail.

If we noticed the 'cert', we might collect the signature, or not ... nobody in management really cared, and I suspect most of us rather liked treating our customers better than, say, their creditors.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

In my case, the certified letter was to formally inform me of something. The sender did not really care if I received it.

Been meaning to show these two items which I won in Kelleher's Sale 724:

739a





746a





Finally, from McCusker's latest auction, a complete set of Farley Reprints on one cover, signed by William M. Moody, the Postmaster of Washington, D.C.

Received these two beauties today, and at a very reasonable price too. Down to an even dozen to complete my French Morocco mint.

Starting Abu Dhabi Mint collection. Got set 1-11 and 12-14 in the mail today for the price I want, with some good stamps on the cover as well. Unfortunately, set 2 will be going back, as it has some flows.

Danko -- interesting to see the sender has used old franc stamps. They are still valid in France, despite the switch to the euro over a decade ago.

Yes, that was interesting. I wonder if the rate 3F = 0.46E is still used for conversion.

After nearly four weeks, my copy of the 2018 Spink/Maury Catalogue de Timbres de France arrived today. At a whopping price of $10, I consider it well worth the wait.

I like the two volume format with one hardcover and a smaller softcover volume.

Hopefully with the upcoming holiday next week I'll get some time to dig deeper into it. And see how much French from thirty years ago I can still remember.

Dale

My Deegam 2003 Handbook arrived today. Does anybody know if this is the latest edition? I am aware there are CD versions out there which are more current. I just want to know if this is the latest written version.

Thanks,
Jack Kelley