What Makes Covers And Postmarks Collectible?

Besides the stamp itself, what do people look for who collect postmarked used covers? I found some from the 30's, 40's and 50's going through grandpa's stuff and I am just curious if it is an collectible worth documenting etc. He held onto them for this long I figured he would not be the only one. There are some super small town ones like Hedley B.C. and even two from Tranquille B.C. which was actually a King Edward VII sanitarium that was it's own stand alone village of some kind in or around Kamloops B.C.

Anyways, not so much concerned with dollar figures as much as interesting. Any guidance on what to look at?

Almost anything could make a cover interesting to someone.

The stamp.
The cancel town.
The cancel date. (Christmas, New Years, Leap Day, your birthday)
First/last days of a rate.
Slogan cancels.
Small towns.
Home towns/states.
Certain styles of hand and machine cancels.
Cancels from now-discontinued post offices.
Cancels with errors.
The coincidental pairing of a stamp's topic with the town name of the cancel.
A sender or recipient of note.
Use such as airmail, special delivery, registered, special handling.
Extra handing for forwarding, misspent, damaged in handling, all of which tend to get extra markings.
Train/plane/ship/truck disaster and crash mail.
to rattle off a few things some of us look for.
Most covers from the era you mention will be 25 cent to $1 box items at best, but there may be a hidden gem.

And to add to johns list..The postcard.

Cloth center..

Thematic interest may also come into play. Some people look for covers with advertising or some other connection to a certain topic or industry. The two sanitarium covers could definitely be of interest to someone who collects things of that sort.

I personally look for covers written in and/or bearing labels or poster stamps (cinderellas) pertaining to Esperanto or other artificial international languages. That's not something that a lot of people look for, but there are enough of us out there that some dealers have topical covers filed in an "Esperanto" section.

So many variables I guess hey? Still, very cool to see the different direction people go with their collections!

Hi Hab,


It is an interesting area. According to Mr Becker's list, here are some examples from my collection:

1- A nice jump strip on cover having the good rate for the period.
2- From Mr. Bileski.



1- Advertising in after war Germany.
2- Notopfer.



1- Allied Zone (Germany) to Canada
2- Plate Flaw on the 25 Pfg



1- Bavaria 5 Pfg (Austria)
2- Arrival mark
3- Returned with Arrival mark also.



Salutation
Hornet

You note B.C. town cancels above and that's one way to collect. In another thread you showed two first flight covers for airmail postal service and there's another area to collect.

John, that is a nice list. I would add
Contents - subject matter, inserts, etc.
How the cover is made - type of paper, leather/wood postcards, turned covers, made from maps, etc.

wkusau, thanks. Agreed.

I have thought of quite a few other areas of interest to add to the list, but they are mostly facets from other eras.

Early- to mid-20th century covers are typically mundane single-rate first-class uses with machine cancels from large towns. The vast majority will have minimal value. Most would languish in a quarter box.

To the original poster, Hab, please show us a few of the covers which you find most interesting.

The use date on the cover can also be a big help when one is trying to plate a variety on a stamp. The date would help eliminate later printings.

I think the trick, in your case, is to find out why your grandfather collected those covers. If you add some cell phone pics of the front and back of the covers, I'm sure collectors here would be able to figure it out for you.

Collectors do try to accumulate postmarks from small towns in Western Provinces and make postmark collections by Province. Saskatchewan officially came into existence in 1909. The Assiniboia Territory and the Northwest Territory covered most of the Western Provinces prior to that.