Personally Designed Covers.

I've been collecting covers for which I have purchased the stamps, designed the illustrations that you see in the scans, and mailed to post offices with a request to cancel and return. I pick very unusual countries. I'm happiest with a Timor/Leste cover I received. I couldn't find stamps so I enclosed cash--and the post office obliged by putting some on! Return rates vary, and sometimes it takes months or even years to get them! I have about 50. I don't intend to sell them, but I wonder if what I've done increases their value?

Modern cover collections with genuine postal usage (albeit philatelic in nature) are scarce. Literally nobody sends mail from these places. Even stamp friends who travel abroad seem surprised when I ask for a postcard. In terms of value I couldn't say. I keep a lot of covers I find in the dollar box simply because they're cute or they suit my style, but further resale of them might net me little. In other words I am the end customer

What you have done is create their value.

Very cool! It's a great idea, regardless of any monetary value.



When my sister was in Germany in 1993, she got a letter in this envelope, made from a magazine ad by the German exchange student who had lived with my family a few years earlier. I thought it was fantastic and asked her if I could have it for my collection. She got a pair of scissors and was about to cut the stamp out, and I cried out, "NO! NO!" because it was the cover that interested me, not the stamp.