Cover of the Day

My cover of the day is a CSA cover I saw online.

 

Here's a cover from one of my topical collections. I collect aircraft on stamps and extend that subject to covers that have outstanding aircraft images on them. This one incorporates an excellent rendering of a Curtiss Shrike, a significant airplane, but one never used in a stamp design to my knowledge. It was the first low-wing pursuit aircraft to enter service with the US Army Air Force (1932) and remained in service until after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. There was a squadron of Shrikes still in service at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Don

 

Very interesting cover! What do you suppose it carried? The postage rate and semi-mute postmark indicate less than 1st class mail, it's third class, I believe. It's also a #6 envelope which, normally, would not have been used for business correspondence. Maybe a circular of some kind? A prisoner release notice, perhaps? An incarceration notice of a Wheaton hometown boy? However, the printed address indicates that there were frequent mailings to Chief Sullivan. How much contact with the City of Wheaton's police chief would the prison at San Quentin have? Maybe the envelopes were supplied by Chief Sullivan and sent to various state prisons asking the wardens to inform his department of any Wheatonites imprisoned.

Anyone know or have ideas about what might have prompted this cover?

Don

 

I don't know what might have inspired this particular cover, especially as you noted this looks like some kind of bulk mailing envelope. Your guess about a sheriff getting a head's up on a potential release seems a reasonable guess, as good a guess as I could come up with. Wheaton, Illinois is a county seat with a historic courthouse, so your other guess about the Sheriff mailing out return covers also makes sense.

 

The high values (.50 - $5) of the American Series are, in my opinion, very attractive stamps. Their earth-tone color contrasts have a warmer look than the "coolness" of the lower value colors.

Nice cover desertgem!

Don

 

The San Quentin prison cover above reminded me of the prison cover I bought back in 2003. It is from the Onlookers Stamp Club at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, Nebraska. Inmate club members have autographed this cover and each one signing has included his sentence. Especially poignant is the signature on the lower left edge - "Jerry Decker, Life -- 14 years done." If not paroled, or dead, Jerry would have served 55 years as of 2014.

Don