Hey, I'm looking to start collecting memorabilia from my home city/county. If anyone happens to have any letters, stamps, cancels, etc. from Salinas, CA or Monterey County, I'd be interested in setting up trades or possibly buy them in the future when I have a good collection going. I know it's a long shot as it's more of a personal worth than stamps with actual worth, so they might slip right past most of your collections, but if you do, I'd love to see them.
I do the same thing. If I have a choice between a used stamp or cover from somewhere I don't know vs somewhere I have history, I'll take the history. Sorry, I don't know of anything I have from your area.
I completely agree, history and backstory mean a lot to me. Thanks for responding, and keep me in mind if you ever find anything neat from Salinas. Though I doubt it because I haven't even found anything on Mystic from Salinas. I HAVE however found some really cool postcards and covers on eBay.
On eBay, bidstart, or most other stamp/cover sales sites, you can enter the town in the search bar once your search is whittled down to cover or postcards. Not all sellers list the postmark/address, but some sellers do. I have found town cancels and such this way. You probably already tried this, but thought I'd throw it out in case you hadn't.
If you have a local 'antique mall' (or indoor flea market), check them too. They specialize in larger items, but vendors will usually put out a display of coins/cover/postcards too. More often than not, that stuff is local.
Good point. We have a local antique shop that has plenty of postcards and covers. Well they get some old postcards with local surrounding New Orleans Cancels. Must be over 50 postcards with at least 20-25 different cancels of south Louisans cancels. I asked them the price, and they wanted $5 per postcard. I told them I collected the different cancels and I would offer them less. They said they knew nothing about stamps, and they get $5 per postcard, end of conversation. Well I havent been back. lol
That's one of the problems. Some people sell based on value, others sell based on, well, sort of like tourism rates. Collectors wouldn't buy it, but people coming through looking for something cool to take home might. I guess it's just having to find the right sellers, like anything. It just sucks when you see something really cool, and it's prices at like 500% markup. lol
