Commercial Covers

A couple of new acquisitions have arrived and this commercial illustrated cover for my Iowa collection is one of them. Marshall Canning Company was originally in Marshalltown, Iowa, purchased by Western Grocers in 1909, and again sold to Consolidate Grocers Corporation in 1944. I don't know when it moved to Hampton, nor do I know if it is still in operation, I doubt that it is.. The Marshalltown address can be seen under the brown overprint in the corner card. I don't remember ever seeing the Brown Beauty product line. Glad to have it for my collection, however.

Don

 

I purchased this illustrated commercial cover primarily for its colorful corner card, but, secondarily, for its cancellation. It was posted in Oklahoma City, but the cancel dial does not include "City" after Oklahoma. Oklahoma was the original territorial name for Oklahoma City, but the cover was cancelled in 1919, twelve years after statehood and I thought that was odd, especially since the return address of the real estate business used Oklahoma City. Turns out it was not unusual, however. A local postal historian told me the OKC post office did not get around to adding "City" to the cancelling dial until 1923!

Don

 

I was rummaging in the shoe boxes again and found this cover, long lost and forgotten. I believe it was part of a lot of illustrated commercial covers I bought to get a couple that I wanted. The rest I resold on eBay. This one must not have sold. That's understandable. It's pretty ratty, but seems like it would have appealed to tobacco topicalists.

Detective Don

 

Among my recent acquisitions are a few commercial usage first-day covers that included three produced by the Texas Refinery Corp. To date, this one of the first stamp in the 1961-1965 Civil War series, Sc. 1178, is the earliest Texas Refinery cover I have. I need to find a checklist of the covers from this company. So far, I have seventeen of them, but that is no where near complete.

Don