I bought a box lot at an auction and among the other things that I found inside was a collection of Souvenir Pages. I have never collected these before so my knowledge of them is a bit short. While going through and cataloging them, I noticed that the one for the Carl Sandburg Commemorative (Scott #1731) does not have the First Day of Issue postmark on it. Is this rare and how much does it effect the value?
These are announcement sheets of upcoming new issues. They used to be posted in post offices. It became popular to start collecting the sheets and affixing the stamps to them as post offices often received more than one sheet. I did this back in the 1970s.
Then, as the popularity grew, one could subscribe to receive the sheets with a stamp affixed with a first day cancel.
Without the first day cancel they hold little value. If the stamp is in a mount, like what I did, then you have the value of the stamp.
Overall, the popularity for these has diminished as they are bulky to collect. Despite the catalog values, the market values for these sheets is low.
