The National First Day Cover Museum

Found this postcard in a recent rut thru a bargain box.

Q/ There was a The National First Day Cover Museum?

Q/ U$D 12.95 for the postcard? Seriously? I paid 25c :)

http://www.cardcow.com/235028/natio...nne-wyoming/

Q/ U$D 100 for the original artwork? That might be fun to own!

http://www.unicover.com/EF4UH1TF.htm

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I guess there was, although it doesn't sound like it was that much of a museum and didn't last very long. In its heydey (1985) it reportedly attracted some 9000 visitors annually, which compared to other area attractions was quite low:



It was part of "Fleetwood" -- the old cacheted first day cover company that was bought out by Mystic Stamp Company in 2007. In fact, to this day they even offer an "opening day cover" with pictorial cancel dated May 20, 1979 as shown here:



Today, the address of the property that housed the now-defunct museum shows it was last sold in 2010 and is now occupied by law offices.

Your legendary research skills at work, wt1.

Even after being told that this cover exists, and who sells it, I still could not find it.

Reminds me about what we used to say about guys who could not find something with a flashlight, a map, and both hands.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The Mystic Stamp Company link to the National FDC Museum Opening Day Cover (if you're interested):

http://www.mysticstamp.com/viewProd...sp?sku=54517

Okay, wt1, but how did you *do* that?

I search on the exact title of the item ("National First Day Cover Museum Commemorative Cover") and get "Your search returned no results." Also got zip searching for the stamps "948a-b".

I also get zip when I search on keywords from the description they wrote themselves, including 'cheyenne' & 'wyoming', which returned results that did not include this cover.

Q/ Have you considered giving a Learning Annex class?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I use a lot of quotation marks. In the instance shown above, I Google searched "First Day Cover Museum" (in quotes) and then Mystic Stamp and voila! the first entry was this discussion thread; the second entry was the FDC Museum Opening Day Cover from Mystic Stamp Company.

Here's a screen shot of how it came up:

Ah, I did much the same string, but without the quotes to lock the phrase. Cheers,

Just to clarify the apples'n'oranges thing, these results were for the search box on the Mystic site.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I am researching the evolution of the FDC "Fulfillment Center." Early FDCs that were done in Washington, DC were canceled on "main" line International machines (I have seen numbers 5, 9, 11 and 13). I have also seen Washington, DC First Days canceled with a Universal D machine. In 1935 some Army-Navy issues were canceled with a brand new International Hand Driven machine (Model HD2). It is surprising that they would trust the new machine to cancel Philatelic mail! Next the operation was moved to Ben Franklin Station. I have some First Days canceled there in 1935. In 1937 the "First Day of Issue" was added to the canceler die (Scott 795). In about 1997 the Universal Model D machine was modified by adding a tab for a pictorial, first on the right, then below the postmark. Next it moved to Merrifield, VA in the 1970s (according to the help from Foster Miller). Finally it moved to "the Cave" in Kansas City. I was told they have 4 Universal D machines and the new Digital Color Machine. Another thing I would like to know is how/if they took the Universal D machine to various First Day Events. I was told the Digital Color Machine was at an First Day event in Kansas City, but they were so worried it would break, they don't take it any more. It would be interesting to know whic First Days were done by the Philatelic machine and which were done by the local postmaster's machine. I have looked up several First Day Cities and some of them did not have Universal Model D machines. I am hoping to get more information and have been going through the back issues of "First Days" and the Postal Bulletin,. but haven't found much, yet. It would be interesting to read any accounts of the First Day ceremonies in the early days.
I was at the 24c upside down First Day in Washington and they had the Digital Color Machine postmark available, so they must have made they up before the event.