Is This Considered A First Day Cover - Or A "Postal Souvenir"

Hello:

Just curious, is this considered a first day cover or is it just a philatelic cover souvenir. Thank you in advance.

Nora.

Philatelic souvenir. Produced as a commercial "collectible" primarily for sale to other than stamp collectors.

In my opinion it is a kind of 'collectable' creation; they are often marketed as a 'future collectable' which is a sure sign that it is not.
Don

Got it. Thanks all.

Philatelic Souvenir.
As "51 Studebaker" puts it, anything marketed as collectable...isnt.
Coincidently at the weekend, I addressed the issue of First Day Covers in a video.
First Day Covers have evolved.
Effectively the earliest are with the benefit of hindsight. Then there is an element of pre-planning...foresight which is understandable.
Then there is a kind of manipulation where so called collectables are produced.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many collectors fell under the spell of FDCs but on my side of the Atlantic, the market has imploded. Bargain baskets at Stamp Fairs are full of FDCs.

'
Not to get all technical, but the first question to ask is whether/not that stamp was cancelled on its FDoI.

1996-05-21, so, like, not.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

You are correct IkeyPikey. That would have been the most logical conclusion. I should have said "This is obviously not an FDC. What is this technically called?" But I don't always ask bright questions

Learning and engagement for the day: check.

The topic reminds me that I have been given a large holding of such items, all Fleetwod concoctions, most of them FDCs rather than souvenirs including about 400 "Fleetwood Proofcards." Do such things move at all these days? Is it even worth the trouble to put them on ebay? And if so, what's a reasonable price to get rid of them quickly?

'
The Auction Leprechaun (who bestows the luck-of-the-lot) included 1000/+ FDCs in a mixed lot I bought recently; addressed & unaddressed, cacheted by a half-dozen publishers, all USA.

I've got three nice things to say about FDCs:

1) I think they make a nice way to introduce strangers to the hobby. FDCs are TFP (Tongs-Free Philately) and, with their stamps & fastidiously neat cancellations & story-telling artwork (cachet), they are a whole lot more interesting than album page after album page of, uh, stamps.

That FDCs come with a cautionary tale - that stamps are subject to the same sorts of fads & fashions & nonsense that afflict most every other collectible - does not bother me; when I taught my kids about driving, for example, I included a lot of cautionary tales ... and everybody went on to get a license.

2) The AFDCS publishes a journal, First Days, which is a pretty good read ... even if you avoid FDCs like the plague. Tell 'em I sent you.

3) FDCs are as cheap as dirt, so you can give piles of them to very little kids. And, if the kid likes bicycles, for example, they are going to be way more impressed with the FDC of a bicycle stamp than with, say, the loosie (single stamp).

So I found a newbie/returnee collector with little kids that they are trying to drag into the hobby, filled (jammed) a now-vintage Regional Rate Box A to the tune of 4.8 lbs, and gifted hundreds of FDCs to some folks who might appreciate them.

YMMV,

/s/ ikeyPikey