Post Your Inauguration Day Covers

It's January! In anticipation or dread (depending on your view) of our upcoming presidential inauguration, this seems like a good time to start a thread on inaugural covers. I have more than a dozen in my collection and will post some of the early ones here.

The 1933 FDR inauguration cover shows the last March 4 inauguration day, before the 20th Amendment took effect and moved the official date to Jan. 20. Inauguration cover for FDR's later terms are quite scarce -- if anyone has some, I'd love to see them. Or any other years -- post away!

FWIW, I look for far fewer covers to be processed this time.

And that is all I better say.

The U.S.A. has come a long way, baby: from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt (our stamp collecting president) to Donald J. Trump.

For some years I bought special envelopes and serviced my own Inauguration covers, sometimes using combination postage of stamps related to the event. I just cannot get into it this time. It has nothing to do with politics. I was not enthused about other incoming presidents but still respected them enough to collect these covers as souvenirs of the peaceful transfer of power. This is different. We feel like darkness is sweeping in, it's not something to commemorate.

That is more than perhaps I ought to have said but it felt better having said it. It's JMO anyway but how I feel.

Well, let's steer back toward collecting -- could we see some of your covers? :-)

I do not really collect these, however, I will post this one. Does anyone know the cachet maker?
Respectfully submitted:
jrc

Jrc, I really like that cover. However, something tells me that the Roosevelt commemoration was added after the letter was mailed and delivered!


Peter

This is postmarked Nov. 22, 1963, the day JFK was killed and Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on the plane, on the way back to Washington, DC.
A very sad day in our History.
I will upload more later. I have all the Inauguration covers from Herbert Hoover to present.

March 4, 1929 Inauguration of Herbert Hoover the 31st President of the USA

We gave away 14 inauguration covers from 1961-2000 yesterday to the various members of the kids stamp club in NYC yesterday.

Noted a thread on another board from someone whose covers got declined for servicing due to 'inappropriate' comments. Possibly not nice to poke fun at the Dear Leader.

With a decline in FDC servicing, in general, compared to the heyday of FDC's, I imagine inauguration covers are also not nearly as popular.

One point taken from this (assuming it's true) is that it would be difficult to determine if a decline in covers serviced for Donald Trump's inauguration was the result of a general decline in interest in inaugural coves -- or the result of lack of interest in Trump, himself. Or a combination of the two, of course.

It would be interesting to find out what numbers of covers get serviced and compare them with numbers serviced for previous inaugurations. But I'm not sure what it proves? If I collected inaugural covers, I'd get one. Otherwise, I don't see myself spending any money this time.

I'd find it more interesting to find presidential covers serviced on key historical dates such as Nixon's resignation date, the date of LBJ's speech about not seeking re-election, and so forth. Inauguration covers are formulaic, everyone knows they're coming, they're easy to find. Less predictable dates may be more interesting and certainly harder to find. Just my thoughts.

Whilst I have little time for Kennedy, that cover is deeply tawdry. Dealers tracking the news and snapping into action immediately once they hear of the assassination. Ugh.

I'm pretty sure the cachet on the 11/22/63 cover was added well after the event. But to be fair, serious inauguration cover collectors would definitely want something like this to complete their collection, so dealers were just responding to a demand.

I have an FDR 3/4/33 Inauguration envelope postmarked Hyde Park. But what I really want to ask is: Does anybody know where I can purchase an April 12, 1945 envelope postmarked Warm Springs, Georgia? I've been looking for an awful long time.

Jack Kelley

3/4/1933 FDR postmarked, Warm Springs GA. would be a real find. I would like to find that one.