Stamp Dealer Covers

I have been writing up covers and this one's turn came up. It is a Herst cover with a Shrub Oak local post tied by Herst's local postmark. The card is UX56, the 1968 25th anniversary of the Women Marines, uprated 1c to cover the 1971 six cents card rate. There is a lengthy message from Herst to a customer on the reverse.

There have been several similar 3x5 non-postal cards with messages from Herst on eBay recently. Herst apparently kept these in a a customer file. I tried to buy a couple but was outbid each time. This purchase turned out better as it is on a postal card.

Don

 

Sweet! Good old Alfie. The Herst covers seem to be a little more in demand of late.

 

Nassau Street. I did not have a Frank Warner.

Unremarkable otherwise, save perhaps for the late Prexie usage.

Too bad the stamps aren't aligned better. Didn't he know that 60 years later someone would be adding the cover to their NS collection?!

 

Nassau Street dealer - Eugene N. Costales

Registered and Forwarded. An A.J. Herschmann supervisor in Milwaukee and a patent for a fluid container is all I find.

Beginning to pick up some lessor known dealers. Perhaps almost time to put something together?

 

Nice cover. You have quite a few Nassau Street covers. What does "put something together?" mean, drawing of pages and mounting covers? Or maybe an online exhibit. That would be good. Looking forward to it.

Don

 

Hi, <DON>. I hadn't thought of it but an online exhibit seems like the way to go with the layout idea I have. Thx! My assistant, Dawn, is a guru at such things, too!

 

Why stop there ? Why not make it a travelling exhibition,covering the wilds of Oklahoma and the exotic cities of Ecuador ????

 

LOL! I dunno about Oklahoma...but I'd love to see Ecuador! Visit Uruguay again which I fell in love with and perhaps Chile.

I'll see if I can rent the Philatelic Truck from the Smithsonian.

 

A rather vanilla George Sloane cover - but they are somewhat hard-to-find and I had only one other example.

Sloane's Column, a compendium of all of his columns in Stamps is still one of my favorite philatelic books. Lots of little tidbits of information and the book can be had for a song if you watch and wait. He did 1350 columns over 26 years!

As to difficult to find major stamp dealer covers: Ezra Cole, John A. Fox and Y. Souren. All but one of the latter I have seen were FDC promotions. The one that wasn't bid over $50.00. In hindsight perhaps should have bid higher but for me that's a lot of money for a single cover...

 

Yes, me too! Just the other day, I was looking through my cover albums and was struck by how many cheaply purchased covers I have. I rarely spend more that $10 for a cover, and not many of those. I also am amazed at the prices some eBay sellers ask for covers -- many $20 and up to $100. Wonder if anyone buys them?

Don

 

I don't think many sell at those rarefied price levels <DON>. Even on the ones I bid <$5.00 there is not much competition. But, sometimes something catches attention and then a bit of a bidding war.

 

J.M. Bartels

After wandering for years, he joins the flock at 116.

Sep 18 1908 - 230 Washington Street - Boston



Dec 28 1909 - 813-14 Old South Bldg - Boston


Jan 12 1917 - 99 Nassau Street - NYC


May 25 1931 - 116 Nassau Street - NYC

 

ASDA 1952 Dinner Invitation


Dear Mr. Keller –

I am still in diapers, but I will be attending!

My Mom will be with me. I promise not to burp on the $5 Columbian plate block.

 

No cost stated. I see the dinner was at a local restaurant, must have ordered from the menu.

Don

 

The Tramer. I don't remember. I had formula my Mom brought. You could have had a great meal for <$5.00 most places at that time. In the early 1960s we went to a local place, Copper Kitchen, when my Dad got a raise or we had some reason to celebrate. The lobster dinner was $4.99.

 

The first cover on the left from Y. Souren's Washington Bicentennial Distribution Service was a recent acquisition, but when I looked in the shoebox to see if I had another from Souren I found the second, earlier cover with its contents, a detailed ad for servicing Washington Bicentennial covers.

Looks like Souren had good response to servicing covers for the Washington Bicentennial Stamp series, Sc. 704-715, at least according to this printed price list. Note the 5th paragraph where it mentions a special cover series of 693 covers with all combinations of the stamps applied for $450, big money in 1932. Also note he, initially, had to turn down 11 of those orders, but was then accepting an additional 25 orders. Incredible!

Also note the perils of doing business during the years of the depression, see paragraph six, mentioning the return of over 100 checks because of bank closures.

The ad page is large, approximately 375 mm high by 260 mm wide. I had to scan it in two parts. To contemplate the huge amount of labor that went into servicing covers for the multitudinous possible combinations of stamps for this series and the amount of time that must have been spent in writing and proof reading the ad and mailing it out to the customer list overwhelms me. Consider also, English may have been a second language for this dealer. To be able to pull it off probably meant the difference between a successful dealership and a marginal one. On the plus side, though, labor and printing were cheap. Still, it makes me realize stamp dealing was not an easy, leisurely occupation. Just a lot of difficult detailed work.

Don

 

693 covers in one special series.....would be interesting to know how many complete sets exist today,or if they have been broken up and sold separately.
Bob

 

The ad is an awesome document <DON> and your comments - as always -astute! I believe per Nassau Street Souren also was involved in high-level dealings. Isn't he the one Herst said came to lunch carrying a block of the Inverted Jenny? My tally shows three Sourens but all the part of that project I think.

<AngloBob> I've never seen the entire series for sale but you'd assume there would be a couple remaining? Lotsa various combos on eBay tho I don't think they sell too well.

 

Here is <DonSellos>' 'shoe box' - https://www.uline.com/Product/Detai...BoL7tq2x2vPXJAJ4G4RoC6FgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds