World War Two Cover From 1941

I found this interesting cover at the local flea market. It was mailed from Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA to London, England, UK, but was sent to Iceland in search of the recipient. The USA stamp fell off somewhere in its journey. This cover is in my WWII topical collection.

Linus

Wow! Cool cover. Wonder if, after all that, it ever reached him? Or did it make the lonely trip back to where it started out?

Yeah.....that is awesome.....I'm always looking for stuff like that.....

These are oft referred to, as a "busy" cover.
Just love that ARMY SIGNALS Postmark, glorious!

The cover does have "unidentified return to sender" scribbled across the front, so I would assume it was sent back to Iowa. I paid a dollar for it from a book seller set up at the Des Moines, Iowa flea market at the Iowa State fairgrounds. If this cover was bought from a stamp dealer at a stamp show, it would have cost more, for sure.

Linus

Great cover, very nifty. I always check when people have stamps or covers at their table at the local flea market. Most often they want high prices for common material, but every once in a while if you keep trawling you'll find something fantastic for a fair (or better than fair) price there.

Though my area is Br. FPOs functioning in India during WW2, but I can quote that Br. FPO 304 was located in Akureyrarkaupstaður, Ísland from May 21,1940 to Ausgust 22,1942 and the FPO 304 datestamp used during this period is quite scarce.

So, $1 is a great bargain thanks to the uninformed seller.

Joy -

Thank you for the FPO 304 information! This means the base was on the remote northern area of Iceland and not the more common base at Reykjavik. I will try to research more on this base.

The book seller I bought this cover from thought it was of minimal value because the postage stamp was missing. I thought it was a great cover myself, with all of the markings and history it contains.

Thanks everyone for the kind words,
Linus

This is the "busy" cover from my collection......1943, and who knows if he ever got this either.



Wish it had letter enclosed .....

Rick,

Nice cover. I am sure you could start a whole collection of these kind of covers from WWII.

Linus

Yeah, as often as they moved......troop movements, sunken ships, APO moves, anything could delay and re-route mail. I keep looking in bargain boxes and stores......

German wwII era I have some with letters I think the 2 on the right maybe pre WWII let me know please

Those are nice !! I cant click on them to zoom in, but they look nice with those markings!

Look at the date stamped on them for pre or post ww11 timeframes, I tried to enlarge the pics but all clarity was lost in enlargement.

When I find older covers with letters, I carefully open the letters inside to verify the date, especially on covers with heavy cancels that hide date/time stamps......checking catalog for stamp issue date may help also...

Perhaps you could scan them to make them clearer. The right-hand cover at the top is post-WWII from the French zone (Baden).