Americover 2005  

by Scott Pelcyger

 

The Americover meeting in Virginia celebrated the AFDCS 50th anniversary.  It was a great opportunity to meet with other collectors and add to a program collection.  Terri Bassinger, who is intimately involved in the cancelling and distributuion of ceremony programs, was the featured speaker at our membership meeting.  She made an excellent presentation about the subscription program and shared some of our favorite collectible with us.  

 

Americover and the USPS sponsored the First Day Ceremony for the Aircraft issue.  They did a great job with the ceremony making it interesting and smoothly distributing the programs.  

Figure 1 Dave's Cachet

Dave Rosenthal made the above cachet and amazingly had it cancelled the same day as the ceremony.

Figure 2 Program Envelope

Figure 3 Program listing

 

Figure 4 Back of program listing

Figure 5 Event program cover

 

Figure 6 Event program cancellation page

 

The AFDCS also distributed a unique "insert" in the form of a model flyer. 

 

Figure 7 Toy Glider with FD cancel added

The ACPS sponsored a ceremony for The Gambia issue honoring the AFDCS's 50th anniversary.  It seemed strange to be signing programs instead of waiting to get them signed! Jay Bigalke did a great job on designing and producing the program.

Figure 8  The Gambia Ceremony Program cover

 

 Figure 9 Inside of The Gambia Program

 

 

I also had the pleasure of presenting to the attendees of the society meetings some recent discoveries I have made since my last presentation two years ago.  Since many of our members were unable to attend, some of the highlights follow:  

 Figure 10 Perf 10 1/2 X 11 Booklet in program

The program for the 13c flag over Independence hall issue booklet pane (Sc. 1623B) is a scarcer program.  The programs distributed at the ceremony had the better perf 10 pane.  Both the perf 11 X 10 1/2  (Sc. 1623) and perf 10 panes were available at the show.  Someone must have had a blank program to which the Sc 1623 booklet pane was attached and cancelled instead of Sc 1623B.  I have seen pairs and panes of the  Sc 1623 added to programs that already contained Sc 1623B but this is the first report of a program with Sc 1623B replaced.  I am only aware of two of these programs but more may exist.  Check your collections.  The tipoff is a pane with the tab present.  The pane used by the USPS in their programs did not have the pane and I believe that Sc 1623B was sold at the show as separate panes without the tab. 

 

A very rare and interesting variety became available to collectors by mistake.  The United Way issue was originally produced with orange boxes over the printing.  This was considered unattractive and a new printing was ordered without the boxes.  The latter variety was distributed at the ceremony.  1987 was 2 years before the subscription program became available.  Some collectors at the time wrote to the local postmaster requesting a program for their collection.  Occasionally the postmaster was kind enough to grant the request.  The Postmaster in Washington , DC selected programs from the wrong box and sent the requestors the program with the orange boxes.  I was advised by a postal official that less than a dozen of these programs got out and that all the remaining were destroyed.   

Figure 11 Orange United Way

 

Autographed programs are avidly pursued by some of our members.  I have not priced programs with autographs in the catalog because I do not have a way of authenticating most of them.  This does not stop me from collecting them, however.  An interesting autographed program shown was one for the 1972 Olympic Issue with Jesse Owens autograph. 

Figure 12 1972 Olympic Program with Jesse Owens Autograph

 

  Since prominent dignitaries frequently frequent ceremonies it is always good to look carefully at your autographed programs and see who the signers are.

 

Not previously shown is a  program autographed by President Bush 41 when he was Vice President and attended the ceremony in Kennebunkport .   

 

 Figure 13 Streetcars Program with George Herbert Bush's autograph

The final item is my favorite and was shown at Americover.  There are surely many early ceremonies that we have not yet discovered programs for.  Perhaps a program was produced for the 1940 Alexander Grahm Bell Famous American issue.  There proof that a ceremony took place is shown in the photo taken for the presentation of a special framed sheet of stamps given to the Bell's oldest grandson.  The sheet was signed by the PMG and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.   On the back of the frame is the earliest postal bulletin I have seen.   

Figure 14 Bell Presentation Sheet with FDR's autograph  

Figure 15 Photo taken of Bell Sheet Presentation

Figure 16 Postal Bulletin For Bell issue attached to back of framed presentation

There are still many interesting items out there to add to our collections and to document for future ceremony program collectors.