Greetings all. I'm new to SOR. I've been collecting for about twenty years and I've always focused on used US pre 1940. I'm getting the itch to start a new collecting area. I've always loved stamps that have been SON with a clear date and was wondering about putting together a complete calendar date set are any stamps postmarked Dec 25 or Jan 1? Does anyone else collect in this area? Would love your thoughts and comments. PS. Go Patriots!
Ernie i do have a couple of covers of January 1 (my birthday) i am a worldwide collector so i do have a couple of stockbook pages of socked on nose worldwide. I also collect numeral cancels on 19th century Netherlands stamps...68 would be Leiden, 22 Delft etc. Since my Jets are not in the game tomorrow ..for some reason...we will just have to watch and see !!
I always thought that a great idea to create a calendar from date cancels. Some people even use old calendars in which to mount the stamps. The date spaces act as "album spaces" for the stamps. Not knowing about the acidic level of calendar pages, I'd definitely use mounts that keep the stamps from touching the pages.
I was wondering how hard it would be to find a December 25th and a January 1st cancel but then it dawned on me that in alot of the world those are just another day. I've been collecting for 20 years and have never purchased a stamp that wasn't US. I've had a few given to me but never went out of my way to acquire any. I guess I need to broaden my horizons!
I still have more questions than answers 01 Feb 2015 10:06:08am
re: collecting by date postmark
When you search for January 1st be sure to include jan 1 in your search criteria. The same goes for Christmas, use dec 25. Spelling out the month produces less hits, but they may be unique so use both. I collect both of those dates as well as feb 29, jul 4, and apr 2, (my birthday). I have small albums for each. Another one I have fun collecting is back in the times when the covers where backstamped I like to get different years. My favorite of those is cancelled on the front as 12/30/1899 and on the back as 1/1/1900. While you are having fun with dates, I have a couple from Japan that went airmail that were sent one day, but as they travelled west they appear to be received the day before, (time zone changes). I realize these are philatelic covers, but I still find them interesting
i can never remember which cover album they are in...i found this one...i know i have at least one more January first and a couple of December 25 to show !
Holiday cancels aren't hard at all. Just find a selection of old postcard greeting cards and see what you can find. The two cards above are from my collection, and took a bit of searching to find!
Card one crosses the year line with an RFD hand written cancel on Dec 31 1906 and a receiving cancel of Jan 1 1907.
Card number two is a Christmas card that was mailed on Christmas Eve Dec 24,1906 and received on Christmas Day Dec 25, 1906.
Back in the days before phones, the mail was a primary way of communicating, so it looks like the post office went out of it's way to delivery these good wishes!
New member, was researching the scarcity of January 1st postmarks, and had to share this with the community. 1/1/1900 (that was a Monday) postmarked NYC Worcester Salt advertising cover, with 1/2/1900 Kingston NY 13-star flag backstamp. One of the first mailings of the new century, kinda cool.
A stamp friend is plating a calendar for his birth year, which happens to be 1943. He is finding a lot of the days, but of course Sundays and holidays are difficult. Also his was a war year, which provides even more of a challenge.
Have fun with your collection, whichever way you chose to collect.