The Daniel R. Seigle Collection Of Transportation Covers - Primarily Rpo's

This upcoming Kelleher sale focuses primarily on RPO's and looks to be quite interesting. There are a number of large lots that consist of hundreds and even thousands of covers from the Charles L. Towle Reference Collection.

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/V/V736.cfm

That's an interesting sale.

I don't know anything about how Towle disposed of his material - whether he had a sale, or whether he sold this material privately to this gentleman.

Charles Towle sold a lot of his material privately. I purchased his 1869 Railroad material intact and sold it to another collector, David Carnahan, and then sold it again as part of my auction of the Carnahan 1869s (sale #15 in 1984).

I also purchased much of the best of Charlie's classic era (pre 1865) material directly. Some is still owned by a "great" RR collector currently living in Virginia.

Dan Siegel was about the only real buyer, average price about $30 each, for RPO material (as opposed to RR material) for many years. Wonder how many collectors there are now. ....

PS - Charles Towle was a great student and philatelist. I acted as his agent for several east coast auctions including the William Wyer sale of railroad covers in 1978 (sold by Stanley Richmond's Kelleher Auctions).

Andrew Levitt ran a lot of Charles Towle's RR material through Nutmeg. I believe that Andy bought the material outright from the family.