Thanks, Molokai, for the link re: Gus Wilson. I can see why those columns would have been so popular, and so much fun to read. Gus looks like a forerunner of the Tappet Brothers. Looking at Gus and reading the explanation about he gave me a bad case of nostalgia, much enhanced by a photo of a 1954 Corvette. Oh, how I liked that car, with what I recall was, its "Blue Flame" six engine. Re: the Fins and Chrome sheetlet, my car is not on it, but I owned a 1960 Plymouth that had pronounced fins. What a tank it was. A different time for sure. Don
Don....a little bird tweeted that you were one of the first to buy a Model T.... I took driving lessons in a horse and cart............ Bob
A commercial cover with advertising for Spotless Flour milled by Eisenmayer of Springfield MO with a type 14 flag cancel and type B dial. It is a "front" only, which I don't normally collect, but it compliments a couple other milling company covers I have and it has a clear flag cancel. Don
Just think how proficient you will be with colors and papers when you buy White's Encyclopedia of Colors set!
I am starting to feel the same <DON>. Perhaps I am just getting lazy but I have enjoyed Stamp Dealer Covers and Cindys more than fighting 19th C U.S....except for N & Ps, of course!
Several Texas Refinery Corporation commercial first-day covers appeared for sale and I managed to get five of them over a period of time at reasonable prices. Here is a first-day for the Sun Yat-Sen stamp issued October 10, 1961, about 3 years before I started collecting stamps. It comes with a two-page letter from Percy giving readers a short lesson in Chinese and on the history of the Republic of China (Taiwan), plus his usual sales pep talk. Don
Hi Werner: Not a whole lot to "get" in this letter. Nothing profound or sublime, but it does contain more than a little Texas slang and jargon. There was apparently a sales contest underway, i.e. Crooked Horse Race, and the letter's bottom line was "keep selling Texas Refinery products." Secondary, is the lesson regarding "good" China (Republic of China (ROC) or Taiwan) and "bad" China (Red or Communist mainland China). While depicting Sun Yat-Sen, the stamp actually commemorates the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. Surely an odd anniversary date, but timely in 1961 because of the lingering political crisis over the presence of the ROC on Taiwan and, especially at that time, on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The stamp and the letter emphasize the United States' support of the Republic of China over the Peoples Republic of China. The letter is kept with the cover and presented solely because it was part of the mailing in 1961. It has no philatelic significance. It was meant to cajole the sales force on to increased sales, but it also said a little about the politics of the person behind the mailing of those commercial first-day covers Don
Thanks for that <DON> - I was a little 'fused myself. I do remember the early 1960s well - Cuban Missile Crisis, 'duck-and-cover' drills. I recall our teacher, Miss Johnson, telling us, "If you see a big flash of light, be sure to cover your neck with your hands as the windows may break and there will be broken glass." 'Jimmy' replied, "I think you should just bend over and kiss the nearest planet goodbye!" although he didn't use the phrase 'nearest planet.' LOL!
Thank you Don,now I got it ! It seems little did Percy know about Dr.Sun Yat-sen.Sun promoted and formed an alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. That alliance held for three more years,after his early death. His widow Song Quing Lin sided with the Communists and would become, many years later,the ceremonial head of the Peoples Republic. Her sister married Chiang Kai-shek and was the First Lady of the Kuomintang-China. It took just eleven years from 1961,before the US changed sides, recognizing the PRC as the only legitimate state in China and sending the Republic of China (Taiwan) into the wilderness.
Don't have many covers, and only two of them are commercial covers. Interestingly, one was sent to Germany, but found it's way back to the states.
This 1935 commercial cover from Algiers was an impulse buy. I was intrigued by the image of a Delco car battery as part of the advertising cachet and what J.A. Tumbler Laboratories, the addressee, represented. For me, Delco auto parts are associated with General Motors so I wondered what this connection was here. It looks like Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company) was a division of United Motors in 1935 and still independent of GM, but sold all of its products to General Motors. The other items depicted or mentioned on the cover appear to be auto parts as well, i.e. AC (spark plugs), springs, headlights, and ball bearings. The Comptoir D'Industries must have been the main supplier of auto parts in Algeria. J. A. Tumbler Laboratories was a pioneer manufacturer of a polish or wax to protect and rejuvenate auto finishes from excessive exposure to sunlight. The cover is franked with three 50 centimes stamps from the Algerian definitive set of 1926-1939, Sc. 50. Very common with little philatelic value, but neatly canceled. Don
A commercial cover for my food advertising collection. This cover dates from the time when businesses still used commemorative stamps on outgoing mail. The franking is the Charter Oak commemorative, Sc. 772, first issued April 26, 1935, so a fairly early usage. As an aside, substituting spaghetti for potatoes would have been a hard sell where I grew up in rural western Iowa. It was meat and potatoes every meal except breakfast, and sometimes fried potatoes then too. Aside from a rare can of Chef Boyardee when Dad did the cooking, we never had spaghetti made at home or in a restaurant. Didn't get that, or mexican food, until I left home for the city and married my more sophisticated wife. Don
In our house it was pasta on Sundays and Thursdays plus one or two lunches. If we had mashed pots, they were covered with homemade chile.
