Short Lived Po's List

Being a novice on this hobby, I'm slowly learning how to value certain items, and I'm focused on cancels on postcards, the early pre-paid ones, as that is 99% of what I have, early 1870's to the early 1900's. Thanks to all the good folks here, that learning curve is a bit easier as time goes on.
I would say some of the "links" provided by the members has been really helpful in trying to figure out rarity and values of some of the cards I have and it also can lead in more questions, I'm sure something you all know from experience.
As the title says, I'm wondering if there is a list out there signifying what post offices to look for that were short lived? There seems to be more interest in them as far as rarity or desirability, when it comes to collecting, I would guess for obvious reasons. I do know at this point in my quest, that that alone is not necessarily a determination of value, as some larger PO's in large cities with certain criteria can also demand good values, so it is a bit of an "art" as one poster told me. I was provided this link below that does provide some info on this question, but it's quite vast with more info than I would need to cull out what PO's fit my description.
I do have a lot of cards from small towns across the country that I can comb through, and I'm guessing that would be a good place to look, but I have no idea which ones are still in existence or if not, how long were they. Thanks for help as always! Don https://www.postalhistory.com/Post_...es/index.htm

Try this: https://www.postalhistory.com/Post_...es/index.htm


Peter

Peter, DId you see the link at the end of Don's post?

Moving on. In 2019 I made the following reply in another thread about discontinued post offices:


And yes, the listing on Jim Forte's website is perhaps the easiest source to identify openings/closings.

Thanks John, in other words, no one (so far) has compiled a (scarce/valuable) DPO list. I suppose that would be a monumental undertaking, and a shifting value scale. I was hoping there would be a Kovels Price Guide on it....LOL! Now, I'm not lazy and will continue my education, but at my age, time is at a premium. No biggie though, it's Winter in Upstate NY and I'm retired.

Don

Which reminds me of an earlier post by "paperhistory" on a card I posted. His quote " That Weissport CO card is terrific. Quite likely a precancel; and the office was relatively short-lived." He attached a nice value.

Back to sorting......

Doing time consuming postal history research is fun and challenging for many folks. But if a non-postal history person is trying to go through many thousands of items and attempting to find the better material, it may be a case of the juice not being the squeeze.

'Paperhistory' also mentioned in his post in the other thread that finding the right buyer is also a consideration. In my opinion, postal history can be less 'liquid' than material of a more general nature. Sellers of postal history may have to wait a while before finding buyers.

And if these cards are glued, demand and value will be greatly reduced. All of these factors may be a consideration when investing your time.

Don

It seems that the task of entering the post office name and state from your postcards into the Forte Post Office DB is the path of least effort. It the result shows your post office was short lived, it becomes a candidate for further investigation.

Richard W. Helbock, the original founder and publisher of The La Posta Journal prepared a series of 8 volumes of post offices by region and state. These books appear on ebay from time to time, but rarely last long because of their usefulness.

Here is one of them: https://www.ebay.com/itm/363848856131

He had a scarcity/rarity factor which he computed much in the manner described by John Becker. I think that once upon a time, he actually sold this list on a "floppy disk" (remember those?), but I never had one.

Edited to add:
A Google search on his name "Helbock" will display most if not all of the books.

Mike

Thank folks.......this really helps. And yes, I had thought, I have the card in hand....step one......look it up on Jim Forte's web sute....step two......glean the info......step three.

And yes, Don, it is fun. I've had these cards for 25 years or more, and I finally got around to trying to understand what I actually have and at the same time, a learning opportunity. I love history anyway, in all forms, always have.

So, entering the towns name into the database on Jim's web site, on a 1888 card marked at Lykens PA, I got the results:

"Lykens (1857-Date) Be notified when a cover is available". Not sure what the -date signifies.

Some searches show the start and end date of a particular PO and some are like the result I got above.

I figured it out folks......great site indeed!