Make First Day Covers Great Again

As a beginner stamp dealer and trader on ebay, I learned my first lesson rather quickly: 99% of FDCs are worthless. The stamps are too common, and so are the covers. It is runaway supply coupled with collector fatigue.

Here are my top ideas on how to bring FDCs back from the grave.

1. The USPS should immediately put an end to the 60 day cancellation window. It was a ridiculous idea - one that hurts novice collectors and ensures that junk floods the market every month. The solution: FDC should be just that, available on the "first day." Anyone who wants a first day cover must stand in line at a post office, or send a relative, employee, or whoever, to stand in line for them. If the USPS can't handle the flood of people on certain release days, they should utilize some unused counter or lobby space (it seems like every post office has unused areas) and chain one of those ink stamps on a table and let people stamp their own covers.

2. No more computer printed or mass produced cachets. The FDC cachet designs should be limited edition, and by that I mean very limited. Each design should have less than 100 known examples and they need to be artistic. No inkjet printed covers. Anything is better than a printed cover. Draw or paint the design yourself. Hire an artist or an artistic family member to do it. Go crazy with it. The nicer and more elaborate the design, the more valued it will be. Especially if it is one of a kind.

3. Make them a time capsule. Put stuff inside. One thing that I never understood is why collectors stuff worthless blank cardboard inside their FDC, especially acidic cardboard. Put an unused sheet inside, a personal note, a bank note, etc. Anything that could be valuable in 100 years. That way, every FDC will be like a treasure hunt for future generations. What did the previous owner put inside? Let's carefully open it and find out!

4. Start a club. Put a mailing list together. That way, you never have to stand in line at the post office and the cover will actually be postally used, enhancing its value. Create awesome vintage-style patriotic overs or any design you want and actually mail it to someone else (with a removable address label if desired). Every person on the list gets a cover from everyone else who sends one. You may end up with a dozen unique handmade FDCs to add to your collection every time a new stamp is issued. Don't want a particular stamp? Just unsubscribe temporarily to the mailing list and skip it. Everything can be electronic.

If these ideas were put to practice, I think FDCs could be popular again.

Hi appletonco




The previous Colombian Postal Service (AdPostal) generated cacheted FDC's for every stamp issue. Each FDC had an insert with stamp design info and a short history of why the stamp was being issued. For some strange reason some dealer's removed the insert

Jerry B

Some thoughts:

1) This is probably a profit center for the USPS, so don't look for them to "close the window."

2) As someone who opposes excessive regulation and supports free market and libertarian principles, I would oppose this. Collectors need to learn on their own to be discriminating, to learn to recognize what has value that will last and what will not. A lot of computer generated cachets ARE limited production, and don't sell that well. Just because an FDC is limited to a production run of, say, 20 copies, doesn't mean anything about how the market will receive it. If it is crudely produced or unimaginative in design, it will not sell for any more than something mass produced. And changing times have pretty much eliminated the truly mass produced FDC's, which is bittersweet because some of them were produced with very well designed and imaginative cachets. Then the trick was to distinguish a mass produced FDC from the pack was in the franking -- plate blocks, combo's, dual cancellations, unofficial cancellations.

Bottom line, the market recognizes and rewards creativity and imagination. No need to place arbitrary limits on how many FDC's get produced. Quality sells, mediocrity does not.

Basil

I actually like souvenir pages over first day covers but it is similar story.

FDCs rarely get postal use and most are manufactured days after the actual first day. I consider this the fundamental problem. It is not like a first flight type cover. The typical FDC is not very special so the underlying collectible basis is weak. It may have more topical (Disney, etc) interest. This is why Postal History (covers that had real use) seems to have interest and money. Plus people retained all those sheets of stamps and covers in the past because they thought they would be valuable.

If you want scarcity with actually meaning something, then only allow FDC's to be cancelled on the first day.

My apologies, I didn't intend for my post to sound Communist.

One of the first things that needs to happen is for the American First Day Cover Society to issue some catalogs. There has not been a recent FDC catalog issued in a decade. The last one that Scott issued was in 2009 and it now sells on the secondary market for anywhere from $247.00 to someone asking $4,700.00 for it.

It is hard for me to fathom why the AFDCS has not done this already. According to their website, they have 1,500 members and are going strong.

If collectors - especially new collectors - cannot find a reference to help them, they are not going to stick around for long. I've got what is available and that only goes into the 1960's. There is nothing cohesive for 1970 and beyond, unless you want to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for a minimal information pocket guide that is a decade old...

Your thoughts?

I have some Danish and Swedish FDCs with similar informational inserts.

appletonco:

>As a beginner stamp dealer and trader on ebay, I learned my first lesson rather quickly: 99% of FDCs are worthless. The stamps are too common, and so are the covers. It is runaway supply coupled with collector fatigue.

Such a generalized comment holds no merit. What material were you pushing or looking at? I would agree that 99% of what is on ebay is common, but wouldn't go so far to say worthless (with the exception of the cheap addons, artcraft, artmaster, etc.). Usually you won't see the cream of the crop offered on ebay.

Starting stamp clubs is a good idea, though it is much more difficult than it might seem at first. Also, I would recommend that all of the members of such local clubs, or individuals if there is no local club really need to join the national level organizations starting with at least the American Philatelic Society and the American First Day Cover Society. Both of these societies have become quite small over the last several decades and they need to be revitalized with large numbers of new dues paying members. Once a member of these societies collectors need to be active members. One way to do this is to write articles for their journals to share your joy in FDCs. They do not have professional writers like ordinary magazines - they rely on their members to write articles so much of the control is actually in your hands.

Another thing to do is to make your own FDC cachets. If you have artistic ability start making hand painted FDC cachets and trading or selling them to other collectors. If you are not an artist, then you can figure out how to use your computer to design nice FCD cachets and use that medium to make your own cachets.

Something else that is much harder to do would be to write to your members of Congress to push on the Post Office to come up with some higher quality, more artistic, and more striking stamp designs. When was the last time the Post Office issued fully engraved stamps for example. Everything these days seems to be simplistic photographs or cartoonish drawings which of course are cheap to make, but they are not very attractive to many people.