Upon enjoying the exhibit, I pulled out my own 1847s. I do own a single used US 1, two US 1 covers and one US 2 cover.
Here's the first US 1 cover I own. It has a Philatelic Foundation certificate, and is a fairly common Boston cancellation and is a single rate cover to Monson, Massachusetts. It's a pretty cover, but unremarkable.
My second US 1 cover suddenly raised a flag with what I learned from Mark's collection. This was from New York to Indianapolis, which is 700 miles, over the 600 mile requirement for a double rate mailing. That is, it should have two five cent stamps or one ten cent stamp on it.
I know Mark through my local stamp clubs, so I dropped him a quick note with a photo of the above cover. What he replied with was concerning...
"Your cover is very interesting. Yes, it should have 10c worth of postage. The 5c stamp on it has the New York 13-diagonal bar grid common for the 47s, but if you look closely, the grid on the stamp doesn't line up well with the grid lines on the envelope. The cover is also not listed in the 1847 census on the USPCS website. Of course, there may certainly be covers not yet listed. But the sole 5c stamp and the mismatch of cancels makes me wonder that the stamp did not originate on the cover."
Kwap! He went on to recommend I send it to PF for expertizing which I will do. This isn't the end of the world since I did buy it rather cheap on eBay, I'd be fine monetarily even if I did soak the stamp off the cover.
But that got me thinking about my US 2 cover. It is a very pretty cover and I paid a good dollar for it because I thought it was that nice! It does use the ten cent stamp for the double distance rate from St Louis to Boston, but it was just too well done. Cancel very nice and overall good condition. So I forwarded this on to Mark and I got lucky this time:
The one to South Boston - the Turner correspondence - is very well known. Several two overlapping 5c on them.
Yea! I'm happy to see this cover is legit and known as part of a correspondence series of covers. That made my day that not only was it authentic but it has provenance! My thanks to Mark for sharing his knowledge!
Tom,
Merry Christmas. The US #2 cover is gorgeous. I still find it amazing that any of those covers survived intact.
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Harvey I think, therefore I am - I think! 27 Dec 2020 11:57:52am
re: 1847 Issues - US 1 & 2
I'm not particularly into covers but I have a few nice ones. Your cover for #2 is amazing, the writing is incredible and notice the use of "wife". My mother had almost no education, most women back then didn't, but her penmanship was incredible - a dead art!!
I have a nice copy of #1 but am still looking for an affordable used copy of #2. Sooner or later...!
I believe that it is to: Miss E E Turner, South(?) Boston, Mass.
If I am correct, the symbol for the double s in Miss and Mass is very interesting.
But I agree with you that the writing is beautiful. Practically a lost art. When I was taught cursive in 1959, it was with fountain pen (as someone here mentioned) and had only to be neat, straight, and legible. The beauty of this cover is several orders of magnitude greater than anything I ever wrote...LOL.
I do recall that a few of the girls in my class practiced a more flowing and attractive style.
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Harvey I think, therefore I am - I think! 27 Dec 2020 12:43:07pm
"I'm not particularly into covers but I have a few nice ones. Your cover for #2 is amazing, the writing is incredible "
Thanks Harvey...
I decided early on that I'd rather have covers for older and significant stamps, rather than play the mint, maybe regummed, maybe not deal. I found I could acquire nice covers, if shopped right, for no more than acquiring a used stamp. And they're so much more interesting since each one is unique, as you have noted.
I also have my Zeppelins on cover. Again, bought right for about what a used stamp would bring. I decided that covers that had actually been on a zeppelin journey were more interesting than even mint stamps of the same issue!
Edit:
I was just looking at older posts and came across my post about my Zeppelin covers:
Harvey I think, therefore I am - I think! 31 Dec 2020 05:03:41pm
re: 1847 Issues - US 1 & 2
The covers really are impressive! I do pick up the odd one, but nothing like those. I've always been an old fashioned stamp collector, "buy a stamp, put it in an album" sort of collector. I doubt if after almost 50 years of collecting that I will change now. But I think those covers for #1, #2 and the Zeppelins are some of the most impressive items I've ever seen! Good work!!
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