Unique Covers

Re: the 'Hap' & 'Evelyn' B-17 cover... a few other interesting points I found.

#1. The B-17 was apparently a pet project of the General's.

#2. The city of cancellation is obvious. He was born there.

#3. The date Nov 5th puzzled me. Then I found this online: "On November 5, Arnold survived a near-fatal crash at Fort Riley, KS and removed himself from flight status." If you read a bit about his life you find out that this event actually improved his position in the air force in a round about way.

Arnold was involved closely in all the development and procurement of WW2 bombers. There's an interesting episode involving the production of B-29's called "The Battle of Kansas" involving Arnold.

I've been working on a Hap Arnold exhibit for months now, and know a lot about his life. But I didn't make the connection between the date of the stamp issuance and the episode at Fort Riley. I think it is probably just coincidence. After the near fatal crash, he went back to the Philippines. While there, he met George Marshall, and predicted to his wife (Arnold's) that Marshall would one day be chief of staff. Marshall had few really close friends, but Arnold was one of them. They lived next door to each other during the war in quarters at Fort Meyer. After the stint in the Philippines, as Arnold was heading back to the states he received a telegram from Billy Mitchell offering him a promotion to Captain if he'd return to the Aeronautical Division of the Signal Corps. Mitchell said that if he turned the offer down, he get assigned to the unit anyway, but with no promotion. Arnold took the promotion. He ended up at Rockwell Field in San Diego where he had to requalify for flight status. The planes the Army now had were JN-2 Jennies, much more airworthy that what he'd been flying in Fort Riley, and he soloed quickly and never looked back as far as flying was concern.

Incidentally, if you look at my avatar, you will see the 20 cent US parcel post stamp of a Wright Flyer over College Park, MD. According to legend, Arnold is the pilot of the plane.

I'm still unconvinced, one way or the other, about the "Evelyn" on that cover.

Basil

Love the history behind the stamp. Thank you so much! That is what kids need to appreciate philately.

Philately is the encapsulation of history (or geography) on a stamp or cover. It is unusual to find "kids" much interested in history. That is an interest that more often just develops with age, maturity, and a sense of mortality. But if more kids could be piqued with an interest in history, then they might find stamp collecting more interesting as well.

So how did we get hooked?

I think that kids are naturally interested in things they can't see: ghosts, outer space, foreign lands, other times.

Stamps can still plug into that, but someone is gonna have to put the stamps into their hands, or it can't happen.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I was 'hooked' as a kid. I've always been stuck somewhere between artist & scientist, and I love history. So stamp & cover collecting is a natural fit for me.

I love that point where science & art converge, and I think stamps & covers are right there. To me, a cancelled stamp represents a point in time, encapsulated and captured; sometimes with artistic finesse. The same is true of covers that aren't add-ons. You can't go back to that date and create a different version of that cover; though sometimes add-on modifications could be an enhancement. So you have a finite supply of whatever was created at that point in time. Then you have the historical or philosophical commentary of the stamp/cover subject which is also so interesting in itself, and the philatelic history of the stamp & its artist. All converging on this one paper time capsule.

I had a boyhood interest in world wide stamps because of their "exotic" locales, very similar to my adolescent interest in ham radio. This was fueled by an interest in geography more than history. The closest I got to "history" in boyhood was reading biographies of Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, and the like. Then high school (and girls) happened. History was not a favorite subject at all in high school or college. As I grew older, a knowledge of history became more relevant to understanding the world around me and I began to read biographies of historical figures and other historical works. I've met a lot of people with tell me they developed an interest in history as they grew older. I didn't come back to stamps (or ham radio for that matter) until I was approaching retirement. In the case of philately, a life long interest in aviation drew me naturally to aerophilately.

For most kids today, the number one thing seems to be pop culture (well, I guess that was it with me too, in the fifties and sixties), which may explain some of the group think at CSAC. But I don't think that's enough to get them interested per se. You cannot put their pop idols on stamps (well, you could, but you'd have to kill them first, paraphrasing). The best I think we can do is identify specific interests of specific children, and show them how that interest has influenced philately, i.e. introduce them to topical collecting relating to their interests. As they reach adulthood, they may or may not carry that interest along with them, or see it metamorphose into other philatelic interests. But if introduced at some level early on, that raises the chances that they will come back to it in later years.

Edit: rereading what I just posted, I wonder how closely interest in philately corresponds with interest in "reading." I wouldn't be surprised if there is a strong relationship or correspondence. But "reading" seems to be an uncommon thing with today's youth, at least anything much more than the length of a Twitter post. Don't expect kids with no attention span to get interested in stamps.