Might not be an actual letter inside (Unless you can hold it up to light and see the writing) but with First day covers there was often a card placed inside. I'm assuming it was there to help the cover stay in good shape ? I don't collect FDC's but hopefully someone that does will chime in.
robert is likely correct, that it's a stiffener not a letter, but there are other anomelies here too: it's franked for airmail postage but no airmail markings are present.
Of course, the Philippines were contested with the Japanese not German army, so it's an odd choice of cachet.
We should also note that the campaign to retake the Philippines hadn't yet started, and MacArthur hadn't yet wetted his trousers, so America was commemorating a defeat, not its anticipated retribution.
David
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"Save the USPS, buy stamps; save the hobby, use commemoratives"
Dogs are my favorite people. I hang with this one as often as I can. 24 Jul 2013 07:43:12pm
re: U.S. WW2 Cover
It is rather stiff; that's why I noticed it. I held it up to a light and saw writing, so I thought it was a letter or postcard. Thanks, guys. Won't open it.
Don't know anything about the franking. Just liked the cachet.
Support the Hobby -- Join the American Philatelic Society 25 Jul 2013 09:24:19am
re: U.S. WW2 Cover
Lawrence Sherman identifies the envelope as a Minkus cachet, valued at the minimum catalog value ($3-6 range) for US WWII patriotic envelopes (Sherman #5576). It is from the second series of Minkus envelopes produced in June 1942. These envelopes were sold by Gimbels Stores and marketed to be generally used for mail as a sign of patriotic support.
To error is human -to really fowl things up takes a computer 25 Jul 2013 11:56:42am
re: U.S. WW2 Cover
The date on the cover was one of the worst days for the 8th Air force it was the Second Raid on Schweinfurt they lost 60 B-17's and 650 men.
Full Story here from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt
If i remember my Air Force history..ball bearing production actually increased during the bombings..heres one "the fall of Rome" i always heard that the Germans left Rome an open city rather than risk the destruction of the eternal city !!
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 27 Jul 2013 04:39:47pm
re: U.S. WW2 Cover
Before Macy's closed their stamp area I just about always left the one, crossed the street and browsed the other. I bought my first World Wide adult album at Macy's in 1964, a Harris Citation which accompanied me to sea for several years, eventually growing into a second Citation binder.
Herman Hurst tells the story of a marketing genius who, at some time in the late 1930s became the manager of the stamp department at Macy's. Being familiar with concept of a "door buster" or a "loss leader" he put some moderately expensive US stamp on sale with a 50% discount.
A Sales Manager runs the sales part of the department and there was a Buyer who arranges purchases for several related departments does the purchasing. Discovering that they needed more copies of that stamp as it appeared to be a big seller the buyer sought out examples through ads in the stamp press which of course he purchased at the normal market price.
The stamps would be sent to the store's Stamp Department where they continued to sell very well. What no one realized for a while was that the Buyer was grabbing as many examples as possible because the manager kept reporting brisk sales and a low inventory.
The hook of the story is that a couple of smart dealers were stopping at Macy's to buy any examples that were in stock at 50% and turning around to answer the buyer's buy ads at full price.
According to the story in one of his books Hurst claimed that several of the stamps made the cycle more than once before someone put two and two together.
( Once again I am working from memory and hope I got the details right.)
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