Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
The few covers I have found appear to be priced or sold at near catalog value - first, is my identification correct? Second, values seem to exceed my own guideline of 40 per cent of catalog for a nicely centered stamp with a light unobtrusive cancel. A little bit of discussion on supply and demand would be helpful - I am out of my comfort zone on these. Thanks.
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The Stamp Agency envelopes make an interesting collecting area.
First, to correct a misunderstanding in the original post, the PSA numbers (i.e, PSA 10) in the Scott Specialized catalog, do not identify the envelopes, they identify the image in the catalog which illustrates the corresponding official seal, which in the current case is OXF-13.
To my knowledge, there is no published study that identifies and describes the different Stamp Agency Envelopes. Some years ago, several collectors worked with me to share examples of Stamp Agency envelopes and created a draft handbook, which identified and illustrated all of the varieties we had in our collections, and which we had observed in auctions and one eBay. What we discovered is that there was a considerable variety of these.
When the Post Office Department began to issue postage stamps in 1847, their first problem was the distribution of these stamps to the thousands of post offices in a secure manner. This usually was done in a well wrapped package, together with an invoice and receipt. It was not until after the Civil War that they began to experiment with the heavy card envelopes to transmit these shipments of postage stamps. This effort was in parallel with the creation and use of the Registered Package Envelopes which were being developed to safely and securely transmit registered mail.
The earliest example of an envelope used to transmit postage stamps is the following. The early Stamp Agency envelopes measured roughly 5.0" by 10".
The function of this envelope to carry postage stamps is documented by the contents, which was an invoice and receipt for a shipment of $12 in postage stamps.
Another early envelope, this one used in 1866, has a paper label added with instructions regarding the handling of this envelope.
These Stamp Agency envelopes were produced by the same vendors who had the contract to produce stamped envelopes. Because these were non-accountable paper (i.e., they had no postage value), records were not as strictly maintained as those of stamped envelopes, and at the same time, have been mostly ignored by collectors.
Our observations were that the design and appearance of these envelopes changed regularly, with one common factor being that by 1868 they were seen with instructions printed on the envelope along with the printed name of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, who was responsible for the production and distribution of stamps.
The Stamp Agency Envelopes produced and used for A. D. Hazen, E. W. Barker, and W.H.H. Terrell all used the official registration seal, Scott catalog OXF1 as a security device. Here is one of several envelopes printed with Third Assistant PMG E. W. Barker's name and the registration seal.
I'm going to jump ahead to two additional envelopes used during the term of 3rd Asst PMG John Merritt, with his name, to illustrate some of the variations one might encounter.
The first is the envelope of the previous 3rd Asst PMG, Kerr Craige, with his name struck out and the name of the new 3rd Asst PMG, JOHN A. MERRITT added. To make this cover more interesting, the Official seal for Kerr Craige also has his name overstruck and replaced with JOHN A. MERRITT, with this seal listed as Scott catalog OXF12.
This is the only known example of the overstruck seal on an overstruck envelope.
Next is the first Stamp Agency envelope printed with JOHN A MERRITT, but with the overprinted official Seal Scott OXF-12.
To accommodate the shipment of larger quantities of postage stamps, as second envelope, measuring about 7.0" by 10" was introduced in the early 1890s. This one is dated 5-11-1893. These larger envelopes are very uncommon, and known only for A. D. Hazen and Kerr Craige.
In our original study, we were able to identify about 50 different varieties of envelopes and seals. So there is plenty of opportunity for future study in this area.
Anyone with other examples are encouraged to post them here.
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Mike, Thank you so much for the information and for your work with Stamp Smarter - what a resource Don left the Philatelic world. He pointed me in the right direction to get a cover I had with a control mark perfin entered into the census (one of 9).
I have no idea why I didn't use the Scott stamp number rather than the illustration number - after a few decades I know better - OK, maybe it's the "few decades" that did it - but I do know better. I found 3 more registry envelopes, 2 with seals, one later (No seal but with an added "Record of Transit".) Top one is an OXF-10, next is an OXF-12 like you show, and the last one is an USPOD envelope that lacks a seal but has interesting directions to "Open by drawing point of knife from X to X without detaching end of envelope.". Interesting stuff.
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Webpaper:
Very nice covers.
Would you please revise your previous post, and add the scan of the front of each of the two Stamp Agency envelopes adjacent to the reverse sides. It should not be all that hard to upload the cover front to your post, although you may have to move the image definition to the proper place. I think others would be interested in seeing the fronts as well.
Your third envelope is a Registered Package Envelope, used to carry registered mail from post office to post office. This is an entirely different item from the Stamp Agency envelopes, and is much more common.
Most smaller post offices (4th class, less than $1000 per year postmaster compensation) would usually only order stamps 3 or 4 times a year, so each office might only receive 3 or 4 of these Stamp Agency envelopes each year. Registered mail was much more common, and even a small post office might receive 10-20-30 registered covers a month, and often there would be only one or perhaps two in the RPE. The result is that one sees many more of the Registered Package Envelopes.
As with the Stamp Agency envelopes, the variety of these Registered Package envelopes is voluminous. However, because they were internal Post Office Department envelopes with no true franking ability, they have not been studied in the same manner as the stamped postal stationery envelopes.
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I was going to cut them into the last post but apparently the 24 hour time limit to edit starts at the first entry to a thread. The first scan is the front of the top cover and the second scan is the front of the second cover.
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webpaper:
Thanks for adding the cover fronts. I see your one example has both the Stamp Agency Envelope and the OXF12 seal with the John Merritt overprint. Your cover is only the second example of this combination I have seen. Consider that you have a scarce item.
Note that your cover was mailed June 7, 1897, and has Registration number 48173, while the example I posted was dated on June 10, 1897 and is Registration number 50301. John Merritt was appointed in April, so these were both used in the first three months of his term in office, which makes sense. It no doubt took several months to go through the process of preparing both the new envelopes and the seals, and there was obviously a desire to use up the previous inventory of both items for economic reasons.
I have no idea if the Stamp Agency used a separate sequence of registration numbers, or if these were mailed at the main post office in Washington, DC, but the difference is a little over 2000 registered covers over a three day time period.
My other example, which was prepared with only the overprinted seal, OXF12, was mailed on August 9, 1897, so there must have been a greater supply of the Craige Kerr seals than there were the envelopes.
Your other cover shows the John A. Merritt envelope with the new John A. Merritt seal, and is dated Oct 30, 1897. The first example I have recorded of the John A. Merritt envelope and seal without overprint was not dated until April 1898. So the supply of the overprinted Merritt seal was likely exhausted between August and October.
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08:52:23am
I have a few of these kicking around somewhere. I had pulled one out awhile back and was getting ready to put a few things on SOR and decided to research it. Not easy to research on Ebay or Hip but auction realizations are impressive. So according to my 2010 Scott US Specialized this seal is a PSA-10 with a catalog value on cover of $130.
The few covers I have found appear to be priced or sold at near catalog value - first, is my identification correct? Second, values seem to exceed my own guideline of 40 per cent of catalog for a nicely centered stamp with a light unobtrusive cancel. A little bit of discussion on supply and demand would be helpful - I am out of my comfort zone on these. Thanks.
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re: Postage Stamp Agency seals and covers - PSA numbers
The Stamp Agency envelopes make an interesting collecting area.
First, to correct a misunderstanding in the original post, the PSA numbers (i.e, PSA 10) in the Scott Specialized catalog, do not identify the envelopes, they identify the image in the catalog which illustrates the corresponding official seal, which in the current case is OXF-13.
To my knowledge, there is no published study that identifies and describes the different Stamp Agency Envelopes. Some years ago, several collectors worked with me to share examples of Stamp Agency envelopes and created a draft handbook, which identified and illustrated all of the varieties we had in our collections, and which we had observed in auctions and one eBay. What we discovered is that there was a considerable variety of these.
When the Post Office Department began to issue postage stamps in 1847, their first problem was the distribution of these stamps to the thousands of post offices in a secure manner. This usually was done in a well wrapped package, together with an invoice and receipt. It was not until after the Civil War that they began to experiment with the heavy card envelopes to transmit these shipments of postage stamps. This effort was in parallel with the creation and use of the Registered Package Envelopes which were being developed to safely and securely transmit registered mail.
The earliest example of an envelope used to transmit postage stamps is the following. The early Stamp Agency envelopes measured roughly 5.0" by 10".
The function of this envelope to carry postage stamps is documented by the contents, which was an invoice and receipt for a shipment of $12 in postage stamps.
Another early envelope, this one used in 1866, has a paper label added with instructions regarding the handling of this envelope.
These Stamp Agency envelopes were produced by the same vendors who had the contract to produce stamped envelopes. Because these were non-accountable paper (i.e., they had no postage value), records were not as strictly maintained as those of stamped envelopes, and at the same time, have been mostly ignored by collectors.
Our observations were that the design and appearance of these envelopes changed regularly, with one common factor being that by 1868 they were seen with instructions printed on the envelope along with the printed name of the Third Assistant Postmaster General, who was responsible for the production and distribution of stamps.
The Stamp Agency Envelopes produced and used for A. D. Hazen, E. W. Barker, and W.H.H. Terrell all used the official registration seal, Scott catalog OXF1 as a security device. Here is one of several envelopes printed with Third Assistant PMG E. W. Barker's name and the registration seal.
I'm going to jump ahead to two additional envelopes used during the term of 3rd Asst PMG John Merritt, with his name, to illustrate some of the variations one might encounter.
The first is the envelope of the previous 3rd Asst PMG, Kerr Craige, with his name struck out and the name of the new 3rd Asst PMG, JOHN A. MERRITT added. To make this cover more interesting, the Official seal for Kerr Craige also has his name overstruck and replaced with JOHN A. MERRITT, with this seal listed as Scott catalog OXF12.
This is the only known example of the overstruck seal on an overstruck envelope.
Next is the first Stamp Agency envelope printed with JOHN A MERRITT, but with the overprinted official Seal Scott OXF-12.
To accommodate the shipment of larger quantities of postage stamps, as second envelope, measuring about 7.0" by 10" was introduced in the early 1890s. This one is dated 5-11-1893. These larger envelopes are very uncommon, and known only for A. D. Hazen and Kerr Craige.
In our original study, we were able to identify about 50 different varieties of envelopes and seals. So there is plenty of opportunity for future study in this area.
Anyone with other examples are encouraged to post them here.
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02:47:15pm
re: Postage Stamp Agency seals and covers - PSA numbers
Mike, Thank you so much for the information and for your work with Stamp Smarter - what a resource Don left the Philatelic world. He pointed me in the right direction to get a cover I had with a control mark perfin entered into the census (one of 9).
I have no idea why I didn't use the Scott stamp number rather than the illustration number - after a few decades I know better - OK, maybe it's the "few decades" that did it - but I do know better. I found 3 more registry envelopes, 2 with seals, one later (No seal but with an added "Record of Transit".) Top one is an OXF-10, next is an OXF-12 like you show, and the last one is an USPOD envelope that lacks a seal but has interesting directions to "Open by drawing point of knife from X to X without detaching end of envelope.". Interesting stuff.
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re: Postage Stamp Agency seals and covers - PSA numbers
Webpaper:
Very nice covers.
Would you please revise your previous post, and add the scan of the front of each of the two Stamp Agency envelopes adjacent to the reverse sides. It should not be all that hard to upload the cover front to your post, although you may have to move the image definition to the proper place. I think others would be interested in seeing the fronts as well.
Your third envelope is a Registered Package Envelope, used to carry registered mail from post office to post office. This is an entirely different item from the Stamp Agency envelopes, and is much more common.
Most smaller post offices (4th class, less than $1000 per year postmaster compensation) would usually only order stamps 3 or 4 times a year, so each office might only receive 3 or 4 of these Stamp Agency envelopes each year. Registered mail was much more common, and even a small post office might receive 10-20-30 registered covers a month, and often there would be only one or perhaps two in the RPE. The result is that one sees many more of the Registered Package Envelopes.
As with the Stamp Agency envelopes, the variety of these Registered Package envelopes is voluminous. However, because they were internal Post Office Department envelopes with no true franking ability, they have not been studied in the same manner as the stamped postal stationery envelopes.
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04:25:16pm
re: Postage Stamp Agency seals and covers - PSA numbers
I was going to cut them into the last post but apparently the 24 hour time limit to edit starts at the first entry to a thread. The first scan is the front of the top cover and the second scan is the front of the second cover.
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re: Postage Stamp Agency seals and covers - PSA numbers
webpaper:
Thanks for adding the cover fronts. I see your one example has both the Stamp Agency Envelope and the OXF12 seal with the John Merritt overprint. Your cover is only the second example of this combination I have seen. Consider that you have a scarce item.
Note that your cover was mailed June 7, 1897, and has Registration number 48173, while the example I posted was dated on June 10, 1897 and is Registration number 50301. John Merritt was appointed in April, so these were both used in the first three months of his term in office, which makes sense. It no doubt took several months to go through the process of preparing both the new envelopes and the seals, and there was obviously a desire to use up the previous inventory of both items for economic reasons.
I have no idea if the Stamp Agency used a separate sequence of registration numbers, or if these were mailed at the main post office in Washington, DC, but the difference is a little over 2000 registered covers over a three day time period.
My other example, which was prepared with only the overprinted seal, OXF12, was mailed on August 9, 1897, so there must have been a greater supply of the Craige Kerr seals than there were the envelopes.
Your other cover shows the John A. Merritt envelope with the new John A. Merritt seal, and is dated Oct 30, 1897. The first example I have recorded of the John A. Merritt envelope and seal without overprint was not dated until April 1898. So the supply of the overprinted Merritt seal was likely exhausted between August and October.
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