Ux36 FDC Multiple City.

Haven't seen this before, but does anyone know why there would be 2 city stamps on this FDC?

There is no address, so this was serviced to get the cancels, and not actually sent in the mail system. Someone wanted the cancels!

Ok. Good enough for me. Just odd because I've never seen 2 cancelations of a FDC, and according to Scott, it should be Fort Myer, but the extra cancelation seems to be Arlington by way of Fort Myer?

The magenta handstamp reads:
"Arlington, VA, Fort Myer Sta." (not "via")
Thus the first day city was focused at one of Arlington's stations. You have two postmarks from the same place. It is a bit unusual for a station to be given the appearance of full city status in an official FDOI postmark. I do not know of another example.

Here is a list of Arlington's stations from the 1969-1970 edition of the "National Zip Code Directory", POD Publication 65:



Finding multiple cancels on philatelic hand-back FDC items is not unusual.

Ok. So I'm not crazy that it is unusual. I know enough about stamps to know that unusual does not mean valuable, but I did think it was odd.

In your item's case, someone may have been present at the FDOI location and requested the normal office's postmark in addition to the official FDOI postmark of which there is no rule against.

Likewise it is not uncommon for FDOI cover preparers to obtain the stamps at the official FDOI location and then go to another post office to get a cover or covers postmarked there on the FDOI date. At the unofficial first day location you can only get the FDOI dated cancel on the actual day. The grace period for requesting FDOI cancel only applies to the official FDOI location. As to your item, by requesting the additional cancellation, the servicer of the card indicates it was actually cancelled on the FDOI.

I will include images which show some of the interesting unusual aspects of FDOI covers.

This is a straight forward example of the stamps being purchase at the FDOI location (Pasadena, CA) and taken to another city, San Francisco (45 minute hop by air) and mailed from there after, or before, a nice shopping trip:





I do not know how many this person created. I own two found well separated in time. I have yet to compare the registration numbers to see if consecutive or not, nor if to the same addressee. Both are in my hands because I enjoy unusual destination or otherwise, FDCs. Here I can now show from and back without turning one over.

Here is a pictorial cancel version, one I don't own, relating the the issue, but not the Official Pasadena FDOI Cancel. I believe (please correct my assumption if wrong) this was a cancel used just at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, thus this servicer got the stamps from the FDOI location and traveled to the JPL for servicing. Now why I bring this up is, only the mailing address for the JPL is located in Pasadena 91109. The physical street address is not in Pasadena, but the city of La Cañada Flintridge, CA with a different zip code 91011. Now I have not looked but expect one could find a cover service with both the Official FDOI Cancel, this wonderful pictorial cancel and a strike of the regular La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011 postmark which as an unofficials should have been only available on the actual date shown:





Here the servicer had this cover in several cities for servicing but with different stamps.






See: https://goscf.com/t/66781 for another Doc's Local Post cover. The,"Doc," produced covers for several decades but I have no information other than the covers. Anyone?

Thank you for those examples and feedback, however I'm not sure how it pertains to my stamp. Your initial explanation kind of makes sense, but your examples are postal used, and it looks like first example you pointed out has the same San Fransisco dating on it. While your covers may be FDOI, my example has a FDOI stamp on it. FDC with FDOI stamp on them is different from a stamp obtained on the first day and hand stamped on that day.

Dual cancels on FDCs are quite common. But yours is unusual in that there is only one stamp. To get an additional cancel, there should be an additional stamp. Like this one:

Oh cool! I haven't seen a double cancel and double stamp before. To be honest, to be honest, FDC and Stamped envelopes are not my primary collecting, it's just that I have a lot of them and this one stood out. I might put it here as a trade, or maybe Facebook, to give someone who might appreciate it more. Problem is every keeps saying it's unusual, so I don't know what kind of value it might have. I'll reach out to some of my friends.

It has virtually no value at all. It is also not that unusual.

John

Well a few people here, as well as the Facebook Covers/FDC Facebook group have said it is unusual. I know unusual does not mean valuable, so I would partially agree with the value part of your posts, but at least 2 Pillars of the Community, and others on Facebook have said it is unusual. If you have examples that might show it is a common thing, and not unusual, I am willing to agree.

Let's toss a $ opinion onto the table. My view on a retail value: If this were placed in a $1 box, it would stay there for a long time if not forever.

I appreciate your opinion, but you have already indicated that you do not know too much about this area. The folks who have posted here are trying to be helpful to you (yes, even me). I gave you my opinion. Here is another:

This particular item is hardly worth even discussing at length, either from a monetary or from a collectability standpoint.

John

OK. Thank you John Becker.

Look again at the Columbus cover I posted above. On the sheet, there is the FDOI slogan cancel which reads "First Day Of Issue" with that being the slogan. Likewise the Official non-FDOI Slogan Cancel devices are also made available during the grace period window for requesting office official FDOI cancellations. ANY properly dated cancellation which shows the date the stamp was issued is a FDOI Cancellation, official or not. Now look again at the sheet and besides the one Official FDOI Slogan Cancel, there are three round date cancels which are of the Official non-Slogan Cancel device. There are several to many individual official cancellation devices to meet the expected demand for official FDOI cancel, slogan and non-slogan. The sheet also shows a pictorial slogan cancel on the $5 Columbus which includes the words (slogan) "FIRST DAY OF ISSUE."




This statement is true for the additional stamp when one is requesting a cancellation at a different geographic location from the FDOI location. Your card was cancelled both times at the same location, by request, of the servicer. Heck the servicer could have been the person to apply both cancels, not one of the postal employees there to do the same, especially on complex FDOI Covers. I posted a complex example below.

I created and own, but it is buried from photographing, a FDOI cover in 2003 in Columbus, OH at the APS Summer Show. I, made some purchases which I did not wish to carry with me so I wrapped them up and sent them home on the Mary Cassett FDOI getting the Official FDOI Slogan, Official non-slogan AND an unofficial Columbus cancellation with the FDOI date. The third cancellation device was needed as the item I was sending was sent Registered Mail. This was still during the time such extra services were still available at show US post office tables unlike today.

Note: As you indicate that you are not versed in FDCs, I will point out that the Scott US Specialized Catalog in the first day listings, both tabular and individual, will indicate the, or the various, official FDOI locations. The exception is the stamp whose FDOI was any post office in the country that was open for business that day such as Mothers of America and The United States Postal Service Stamp. The slogan, "First Day of Issue" first appeared the same year the Mother's day stamp was issued, 1937.





Hideaki Nakano was the creator of the most complex FDOI covers you can find. The above is "simple" compared to others. Here only two of the four sides are shown but with close examination you can discern at least one of the two in-folded sides.

The collectors or creators of FDCs are one of the three largest groups, APS, ATA (American Topical Association) and AFDCS (American First Day Cover Society) in the USA.

As to the $$ question, your card would sit in a dollar box until I came along but I would still try to negotiate the price as it belongs in a quarter box. As a FDC, what goes against it is it is postal stationary, a post card as well, no cachet, cluttering extra superfluous postmark. And yes I would like it for that extra postmark.

Edited for word correction (thanks auto-spell).

parcel,

Thanks for pointing out the difference between getting a second cancel at a different location, and a second cancel at the same location.

Basil