Expertizing Newfoundland Airmails/Airmail Covers

Need expertizing Newfoundland airmail cover. Who can I contact - based on your recent experiences?

Vincent Graves

Hey Holmsbu17, just a friendly suggestion, before you send it away for expertizing. Maybe you could post it online and let the forum members recommend if you should send it. Might save you some money in the long run.

There is some very knowledgeable members here that might be able to give you a second/third/forth opinion.

just a thought

Trodent

Post your cover.

Robert

Thanks for replies!
I have no scanning facilities at the moment, but I may describe the cover - or the cover front (the back of the cover is restored).It is from the 3rd transatlantic attempt - Martinsyde - supplementary mail postmarked (machine cancel) St. Johns on July 12. 1919. Signed by Major Raynham. Adressed to Norwich, England. The stamp (one dollar) has not the machine cancel strike - it looks at is just missed. If this is the real thing - it has some value.

It is hard to visualize what you are looking at..Can you take a camera/cell phone picture and post it...It would help.

(FF1 cover) As far as I can make out this cover was from
April 12th ( back stamped May 30th, 1919 )
May 2nd (back stamped May 30th, 1919 )
or
May 17th (back stamped May 30th, 1919 )

(FF2 cover)
April 19th ( back stamped Jan. 7th, 1920 )
July 12th. ( back stamped Jan. 7th, 1920 )
April 10th, 1919 ( back stamped Jan. 7th, 1920 )

BACK STAMPS mean
postmark on the back of a letter showing a post office or station through which the item passed in transit...Backstamps are often applied as documentation of transit times, lengthy ones in the case of ocean crossings

Robert

Can you describe the stamp.
Is it surcharged red 15c seal stamp
and says "Trans-Atlantic AIR POST 1919 ONE DOLLAR"

you mentioned Major Raynham. According to the Newfoundland Specialized Catalog, Raynham was a captain in 1919.

"The second competing team, Captain F.P. Raynham and Major Charles W.F. Morgan, made two unsuccessful attempts in April and July in the Martinsyde. Captain Raynham later sailed for England with the mailbag. Again,the 3¢ value of the Caribou issue was used but this time the stamps were not surcharged, just inscribed by hand
"Aerial/Atlantic/Mail" and initialed "JAR" by the Postmaster General, John Alexander Robinson (Lowe, 1973:494)."

I would be nice to see a copy of it.

This is a cover that could be far too important to be "expertized" in this Forum (with all due respect to the well intended participants). The cover really should be sent to the Greene Foundation where it will get the full attention that it deserves from committee members who truly know and understand what is expected.

GJP

While what Gportch says is correct, we still want to see the cover.

gportch I respect your last post, But I am ust trying to save Holmsbu17 some possible money. Why send something to the Greene Foundation when it might be a fake.

There is a lot of Collectors in this Forum, using their expertise they could recommend if the cover should be Expertized or not. This will allow Holmsbu17 to make his own decision on the feed back he receives.

I am hoping the cover he does possess is Genuine in all respects. But as collectors, we all know forgeries exist.

Holmsbu17 says its a $1 dollar stamp, the first non-surcharged $1 stamp was printed in 1931. The cover is from 1919. Hence my concern.

Trodent

Hello again. Very thankful for all the responses. I an an airmail collector and I usually recognize a fake when I see one. I bought the cover at an auction and I know it was sold at a Harmers auction in 2006. It looks genuine to me, but as I said - it is a cover front. Only 25 covers were posted for the flight (and they are scarce). One cover was offered at a recent sale at 10000 euros. So - it will be a case between me and an expert from now on. I got names - and that was what I needed. So thanks again - but now there will be no further comments in this thread from me.

I wish you luck and if you send it to the VG Greene Research Foundation they will give it a thorough examination. If you would share an image with us after you get the opinion from the experts I am sure we would like to see one.

Holmsbu17,

First off - THANK you for sharing the information. I won't echo the other comments about sharing an image, but it helps this community alot to have even a snapshot, let alone a scan. Many of us have similar covers and "a picture is worth 1000 words".

Secondly, I only collect Newfoundland and have in particular over 150 airmail covers (mostly all first flight), so i'm quite curious. I totally get sharing information to save money and its a good step. That said : I know Gportch and the VGG and you really should send it to them at some stage. I have used them many times and its worth every penny.

Third, I have three similar covers from 1919, and I will attach them for you (and the group's pleasure) help. Please note that the specific month and date and year are critical--you wrote july 1919 or did you mean june 1919? this is where the scan could help as "JU 1919" on the postmark can be misinterpreted. not saying you did.

...images to follow...

Note to community - thanks to whomever updated the image optimizer. it confused me at first, but much much better and easier to upload images
Great!