What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

(I like the "poached egg" cover)

In the mail today:
Picked this up after it was relisted. Posted with $6.17 mostly of well (ab)used forever stamps.

I was sure someone else would bid. $4 was the start bid.

Didn't really think I needed it; wanted something to play with.

There were several cached FDC's I added to the collection.

Also: Fluor/non-Fluor paper & rough/smooth paper varieties. I had one or the other, but not both.

The majority kept were in un-cached FDC's. It seems I had the majority in cached FDC's but could use the un-cached ones.

So out of the 73 offered, I was able to add 48 to the collection. Was pleasantly surprised.


For my postal cards, I like to collect (examples of each): mint, un-cached & cached FDC's, varieties, used in period, events, interesting cancels, and advertising. (So almost anything )

pat

Couple of boxes - £200-worth - of material from a recent auction. A first pass suggests around £400-worth of decimal postage within, so the rest is free fun.

Another vintage (1969) National album. Needed one with the larger spine size to fit the BOB section.

When did Scott National switch to the green binders?

I have a fond memory of seeing a nice US Scott National in 1969-70 time frame in the green binder. I had chosen the Harris Liberty.

I have green binders going back to 1955, and I've seen green binders from the 1920s. I thought this one was really neat and I almost bought it:

Scott National Postage Stamp Album with stamps, ©1953

One of my favorites.

Robert

Recently received a nice variety of pre-decimal British stamps ordered from a dealer in England to add to my SG Windsor albums. Amazed that it's easier to find these stamps in GB than in the USA, but I suppose the same could be said of US stamps being easier to find here than overseas.

I received this item today. I bought it for the postal stationery part of my GB collection. It was advertised as postal stationery and I bought it from a dealer that I have bought a lot of postal stationery from in the past, but upon receiving it, I'm not quite sure WHAT it is. It's quite a bit smaller than any standard postal card or envelope issued by Royal Mail and which used this style of octagonal printed stamp. It's a bit smaller than a standard (in the US) 3 by 5 inch index card, is not in the form of an envelope or a postal card, and has no printing on it to indicate its use other than the note that "This Souvenir sheet has Postal validity", so it could be used as postage. It's also rather thin and flimsy, thicker than a normal stamp, but thinner than a postal card. On the back is some sort of serial number in black ink, so maybe it was a limited issue? It is not listed in Scott or Stanley Gibbons, nor is it listed in my Michel catalogue of postal stationery from Western Europe which includes GB. Has anyone on the forum seen such an item, and how was it meant to be used? It doesn't seem to have gum on the back, so if you wanted to use it for postage I suppose you would have to have put glue on the back, or else taped it to an envelope. I don't suppose there are a lot of postally used ones around It's a curious item, and I will put it in with the rest of my postal stationery. My album is blank Steiner format pages, so I won't be upsetting any pattern by placing it there.

Oh! "My kingdom for a paragraph..."

This is a Lettercard
Brightmore #21 6.5d Blue
1975

Exists in Cream and White paper, with 1 Phosphor band.

However, it misses the format "lettercard" (Type E) on front
and Type X2 text on back "please stick on.....etc"

Maybe yours has been cut down?

Only other instance I can imagine, is an STO = Stamped to order card
which would facilitate the addition of the cachet

Note: "Post Office Lettercards have been uprated under STO facilities, these are usually Philatelic in nature"

I have checked Huggins/Baker
Under Air Mail letter sheets (STO) of this Octagonal format, no 6.5d listed

If it is a genuine "souvenir sheet" it will not exist in a stationery catalogue.

Huggins/Baker
relatively few STO letter cards were produced commercially, with many being posted back to the company that created them. leaving a few, mainly mint items on the market.
The heading "Letter Card" was not always used.

An explanation here.

"These are souvenirs sheets, these were printed by the Post Office, sponsored by a British Stamp Dealer Rushstamps. They bore embossed stamps and so were postally valid, they could be used as postcards. Three different designs were used and two values, 6½p for second class mail and 8½p for 1st class. The 8½p has two phosphor lines. There were a limited number of sheets printed and each one issued bore a serial number printed in black on the back."

See them here:

-/jubilee.html

Nice catch

Waddsbadds may wish to send Eunice / Ron a copy, for the record.
(They are members of SCF)

Never seen these before, "Rush Stamps" sounds familiar though.

Rush stamps mentioned here by NSK
https://goscf.com/t/81396#742866 br /
https://goscf.com/t/81010#737835 br /

http://www.rushstamps.co.uk

Thanks, 22 crows for the link to earsathome, explaining about these souvenir sheets. Interestingly. it says that there were three different designs, and it shows three different designs, but mine is not among them, so it looks like there were more than three. Still, a nice bit of detective work. (and now I'll have to try to find the others) Also it says that the stamps were embossed, but mine actually isn't. And finally, I misspoke when I said that my GB postal stationery collection is on blank Steiner pages. It isn't (but my Denmark postal stationery collection is), but rather it is on blank Schaubek pages to conform with my mainstream GB collection

On the Rush Telegraph 70 page for the 1977 Silver Jubilee issues, under Great Britain it does say 'Postally valid S/Shts (4)', so apparently there were 4 sheets.

http://www.rushstamps.co.uk/mag/rt70/p065.pdf