Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
12:25:38pm
Other marks were used as well. A triangle signified the Chicago dead letter office, a square (quite rare) indicated a bulky enclosure and a circle denoted that nothing of significant value was included in the letter. I'm going to have to do a fair bit of research on this and I have no idea of what fair values would be but I think I'll try to find one "nice" example of each mark I am missing.
Does anyone "out there" have any information they could share?
EDIT: I picked this up a few weeks ago but I don't think it is connected to the dead letter office.
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The late Anthony S "Tony" Wawrukiewicz had an Exhibit of the Dead Letter Office mail which he allowed me to host on Stamp Smarter. You can find it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MRrhe5a ...
The first use of the Triangle on an envelope was about 1878 and Tony has an 1881 example on page 21 of the exhibit. I have a scan of a DLO cover dated 1881 that uses the Star of David marking.
The general use of the envelopes with other symbols like you showed began about 1900, and they can be seen beginning about page 61 in the exhibit.
You wrote...
"A triangle signified the Chicago dead letter office"
I do not believe that the use of a Triangle had anything to do with Chicago. I believe it was the symbol used to return an ordinary letter that found its way to the Dead Letter Office.
This should give you a start with learning about the Dead Letter Office process with these envelopes.
MikeL
Edited to correct spelling.
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12:57:31pm
Thanks Mike, exactly what I wanted! The site is bookmarked and now I know exactly what to look for!
I'll read the article when I have a bit more time. It would be very easy to get carried away with this so I have to be very careful!
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Harvey,
You will find numerous examples of the 20th century covers with the symbols on eBay at reasonable prices, but those from the 19th century are harder to find. For some reason, most DLO material - covers, USPOD forms, instructional documents for the Dead Letter Office operation are difficult to locate.
I suspect that in the 19th century, while there plenty of dead letters identified and sent to Washington's DLO, only a small percentage were returned to a sender or correct destination, and thus were destroyed.
And you are correct, it will be easy to get carried away. 
Enjoy.
MikeL
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01:21:58pm
Thanks again Mike. After I read the article I'll make my decision how far to take this but right now I plan to make it a mini collection of one nice older cover per mark. This might change depending on what I find, we'll see!
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I wonder if Roy's BuckaCover has any?
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09:01:47pm
I picked up a "circle" and two very nice "triangles" a few days ago for very fair prices. I'll show a scan when they arrive. I guess the "square" will be the difficult one to find. This is only a mini collection, I really don't want to get too caught up in these dead letter marks. It looks like it could be a collection that could be very extensive if you decided to get carried away!!
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How does the dead letter office work?
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10:15:00am
"How does the dead letter office work?"
Sorry, but I really don't know. Could someone who's more into postal history answer this?
EDIT: I'm much more into just collecting the stamps than other areas. Only a fool thinks he/she knows everything and it takes a bigger fool to think they can learn everything!! I guess that's why Google is there, just don't believe everything you read or see!! There is an awful lot of garbage being generated by fools using AI - scary stuff!!!
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When a letter cannot move forward to the addressee nor be returned to the sender, it goes to the dead letter office.
Those two things happen when the addressee doesn't live at the address and has not indicated a forwarding address (assuming he once did); the PO will often open the letter if there is nothing to indicate where the sender lives (hence many of those official seals, resealing the letter after opening).
In older days, many letters were addressed to the PO, where they were held until called for by the addressee; if that didn't happen in timely fashion, PO advertised the letter's existence in the local newspaper. If no response, dead letter here it goes.
David
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These symbols (square,circle, triangle, and star) were first used in 1877 discounted in the 1950's!
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03:19:34pm
Thanks for the information. The star, triangle and circle are fairly easy to find... the square, since it was reserved for bulkier objects or parcels, is much more difficult! Can anyone show an example?
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Try Stamp Smarter
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04:21:03pm
It's actually a lot more fun and more useful to others if someone here can show one.
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Common sense it would be useful to check stamp smarter, beside it would not hurt to see what it has to offer!
I've been told by SOR I should not say COMMON SENSE, so change what I said to "it might be useful to" ...
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There is an image of a square symbol on stamp smarter, for the dead letter office!
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08:39:56pm
"There is an image of a square symbol on stamp smarter, for the dead letter office!"
Thanks, when I have a chance I'll have a look!
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11:09:26am
I have tried several times, in StampSmarter as well as other areas, to find an example of a square dead letter marking. Could someone either post a link to an example or show a picture? I just need to see one example! I know @1899 says there is an example on StampSmarter but I can't find it! Help please !!!!
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Joe, go here and look at the second image. There is also a short paragraph regarding where it was used.
https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-pag ...
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Harvey:
Here is an image of the DLO envelope with a Square.
This is from a video on Stamp Smarter created by Don Denman on the Dead Letter Office. That video can be viewed here:
https://stampsmarter.org/Learning/album_ ...
This image appears at 11.21 minutes into the video and an explanation of the square symbol appears a few seconds later.
Edited to add...
It is the same cover which was illustrated in the Linn's article by Tony Wawrukiewicz, posted by sheepshanks about the same time I prepared this post.
MikeL
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12:32:48pm
Thanks Vic and Mike, exactly what I needed!! Now I just need to find one at a price I think reasonable!! It is so nice to have someone answer a question without making you feel dumb for asking it. It really is a pleasure to deal with sensible people occasionally!
I have a triangle, circle and star now - the circle is on it's way! When the circle arrives I'll post a picture of the three items. This is not going to be a major collection, when/if I manage to find a square it will be finished! Since I can't find a copy of the square for sale (yet!!) I don't know when the collection will be "complete", if ever!!
EDIT: I watched the video, great material. I guess this is what @1899 meant when he said there was a picture of the square on StampSmarter. I wish I had watched the video instead of just searching the site for an image - my bad!! It's going to be difficult to find the square since its use was on undeliverable parcels. I guess, if I do find one, it'll probably be on piece instead of a cover!
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Harvey:
Don't give up too soon. There are other symbols lurking, as well as interesting variants, mostly from more recent periods in time.
A Five Pointed Star, San Francisco, CA DLO, 1946
A Five Pointed Star, Chicago, IL DLO, 1952.
A "Square" with points on each side, San Francisco, CA DLO, 1958. I also have seen this on a 1922 DLO cover from San Francisco, CA.
A "Hollow" Triangle, San Francisco, CA 1941.
These are not from my collection, but items I have encountered and preserved from eBay. I have no knowledge of what the new symbols indicate.
MikeL
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02:24:18pm
Thanks (I think!!!) Mike. I'll keep my eyes open. I have a saved search on E-Bay that should turn these up. You do have to be specific with that saved search since there was a movie, which I never saw, called Dead Letter Office. The weird pointy square is especially odd!! If you have a spare square in you collection I would much rather buy from someone here than someone on E-Bay!! Thanks for the information though, I still think I'll consider that collection complete if a square ever shows. If I run into other items at reasonable prices I might be tempted!
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I don't have an example of a cover with the "Square" in my small collection.
I primarily collect the various forms that related to the Dead Letter Office in the 19th century. Most are either instructional to the Postmaster, or accompanied a Dead Letter to the local postmaster for delivery to the original sender or addressee - whichever could be identified.
Good luck with your search. Be patient. The examples with the non-standard symbols were observed over a ten year period, and while I don't "harvest" the scans every DLO cover I encounter, I do keep an eye open for the unusual items.
MikeL
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Canada Dead Letter Office
David Handelman exhibit on the Frajola Philamercury website.
https://www.rfrajola.com/mercury/DH9.pdf
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08:53:15am
Great article, I'll post mark it later! Thanks!!
Joe
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10:50:21am
Mike I just picked up the same item with the "hollow Triangle" that you showed in your post below. Also, I just had to tell the person I ordered the "circle" from that it still hasn't arrived. A great item that I really wanted!! Hopefully it will still arrive, It's amazing how often items you got a good deal on don't show up!
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Harvey,
Sorry you are having trouble with the purchase/delivery of the one cover. I think reaching out to the seller to see if he knows anything is the right thing to do, but unless there is tracking, he has no more control than you (or I ) do.
I have seen slow delivery of items myself here recently. A cover mailed with tracking from up in New York just spent eight days in a local loop before breaking out and heading to me in Texas. Informed delivery claims that I will get it today.
Going back in time about Dead Letter Office materials, here is a POD form from the Dead Letter Office from 1846. Note it was mailed to a town in Michigan, which only became a state in 1837, so it was probably still widely unsettled.
At the bottom of the page is a section that was removed by the postmaster. I believe this has the information associated with the undelivered cover, which the postmaster was required to remove and return with the results of his investigation.
While I have seen several similar letters/forms from this era, all have some missing pieces that make it difficult to actually determine just how the system worked and whether the investigations were successful.
And here is the front panel.
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02:26:03pm
Mike, great item of postal history!! I would like to kick myself in the butt for something I did years ago. They had just closed down the local post office next door. The post mistress gave me stuff to sell since I was running an antique store. I kept the postal sign which was original to the post office but sold her scales, postal hammer and various other things. I should have given her the money she wanted and kept the items, local history now gone! She was trying to give me the pigeon hole piece with the local names on it but I passed since I wasn't sure what to do with it - stupid, stupid, stupid!! She probably had a lot of postal documents that got chucked! But at least I still have the enamel Black Point Post Office sign to pass on to a local Heritage Center in nearby Hubbards!! At one time every small community had its own post office, now we all have those ugly super mail boxes!
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Harvey:
Hindsight is wonderful but don't beat yourself up. We all make mis-judgements. My past is littered with great items I didn't buy at the time, and while I have improved my discipline, I still have non-buyers remorse several times a year when I chicken out because I erroneously throught the price was getting too high.
I have often hoped I would find an old post office with an archive of old forms (even from the mid 20th century would be great), and have come close. One newly appointed postmaster at a small PO in West Texas told me how he and his son had hauled several pickup truck loads of old post office papers to the city dump the previous year after taking over from the previous postmaster who had been there for 30 years (and apparently never cleaned out anything!).
The one time I did hit paydirt was with this group of papers from the post office at Newburgh, Maine. Virtually everything was dated between 1840 to 1860. It turned out that the building which housed the post office had been a General Store, and was owned by the same family from 1820 until 2020! The post office closed about 1910, but was kept as an informal museum which retained everything, until a new generation inherited it in 2020, and they wanted to sell it, so they had to clear it out, and there was one heck of an auction.
Rather than clutter this thread on the Dead Letter Office with that story, I have started a new thread with some of the items from that post office....
https://stamporama.com/discboard/disc_ma ...
Mike L
Edited from grammar.
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12:49:17pm
Not really a mini collection but it seems like a good place. This is a fun collection I started a while ago, almost all stamps are from here. It's mostly done for the postmarks but eventually I'll figure out the Scott numbers for the stamps - some are done but not many! There are a few US stamps I like, obviously this is one of them! I doubt if I'll pick up more lots, just individual stamps with interesting postmarks!
EDIT: At some point in the future I might have a look through these stamps for EFO's but my main reason for this collection is postmarks and colour shades. There's a couple other early stamps I collecting (amassing actually) just for fun. I really like the early postmarks and at some point these groups of stamps are going to need some work!
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Good luck, this lot will require a lot of work!
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08:46:40am
The collection was done mostly for post marks. I'm not really into searching for EFO's even though there must be some there. There are some ( about a third) that have to be done to see which stamp they are. If I notice EFO's in the process I'll make note. My eyesight and patience are the main problem areas.
My wife and I were sort of a philatelic team, I did the "grunt work", she did the "fine details". It was a question of patience and you can't really pretend to have it if you don't. I enjoy my collection and do it my own way - we're all different, I don't enjoy "fly specking", so why torture myself? Whoever has the collection next can fill in the details!
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08:47:01am
Ran into these two on E-Bay at reasonable prices - the 5 pointed star and a different shaped triangle. I asked to seller to wait until after the strike to ship, he said he'd wait and then shipping was announced. I just hope they are safely held somewhere!!!
Here's the type of triangle I'm used to seeing, smaller equilateral!!
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06:36:27pm
I was checking out E-Bay and found a dead letter cover with a circle mark. These are very hard to find so I have already picked up two. If anyone of you has started a collection of this material and is missing an example of the circle here is the third one I just discovered. The shipping is a bit high but possibly not for a US buyer! I have no need of another so I thought I'd pass it on.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/167916926589
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thanks for sharing Joe!
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08:41:25am
Vince, I've read and visited the area and there's great information there. The circle is still hard to find so I just thought I'd mention there's one out there for sale, My collection is minor, just one or two / mark, and all I'm trying to find now is the square (real rare). If anyone sees one let me know!!
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vinman wrote above...
"Stamp Smarter site has an exhibit titled
“Operation and Innovation
in the Dead Letter Office from 1860-1985"
A direct link is here....
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MRrhe5a ...
MikeL
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Aug 2025
12:25:38pm
I got this amazing cover from David Teisler the other day. The Star of David mark indicates that the dead letter office ended up with the item and there were items included of value which was nor money, for example documents!
Other marks were used as well. A triangle signified the Chicago dead letter office, a square (quite rare) indicated a bulky enclosure and a circle denoted that nothing of significant value was included in the letter. I'm going to have to do a fair bit of research on this and I have no idea of what fair values would be but I think I'll try to find one "nice" example of each mark I am missing.
Does anyone "out there" have any information they could share?
EDIT: I picked this up a few weeks ago but I don't think it is connected to the dead letter office.
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
The late Anthony S "Tony" Wawrukiewicz had an Exhibit of the Dead Letter Office mail which he allowed me to host on Stamp Smarter. You can find it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MRrhe5a ...
The first use of the Triangle on an envelope was about 1878 and Tony has an 1881 example on page 21 of the exhibit. I have a scan of a DLO cover dated 1881 that uses the Star of David marking.
The general use of the envelopes with other symbols like you showed began about 1900, and they can be seen beginning about page 61 in the exhibit.
You wrote...
"A triangle signified the Chicago dead letter office"
I do not believe that the use of a Triangle had anything to do with Chicago. I believe it was the symbol used to return an ordinary letter that found its way to the Dead Letter Office.
This should give you a start with learning about the Dead Letter Office process with these envelopes.
MikeL
Edited to correct spelling.
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Aug 2025
12:57:31pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Thanks Mike, exactly what I wanted! The site is bookmarked and now I know exactly what to look for!
I'll read the article when I have a bit more time. It would be very easy to get carried away with this so I have to be very careful!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Harvey,
You will find numerous examples of the 20th century covers with the symbols on eBay at reasonable prices, but those from the 19th century are harder to find. For some reason, most DLO material - covers, USPOD forms, instructional documents for the Dead Letter Office operation are difficult to locate.
I suspect that in the 19th century, while there plenty of dead letters identified and sent to Washington's DLO, only a small percentage were returned to a sender or correct destination, and thus were destroyed.
And you are correct, it will be easy to get carried away. Enjoy.
MikeL
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Aug 2025
01:21:58pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Thanks again Mike. After I read the article I'll make my decision how far to take this but right now I plan to make it a mini collection of one nice older cover per mark. This might change depending on what I find, we'll see!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
I wonder if Roy's BuckaCover has any?
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
21 Aug 2025
09:01:47pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
I picked up a "circle" and two very nice "triangles" a few days ago for very fair prices. I'll show a scan when they arrive. I guess the "square" will be the difficult one to find. This is only a mini collection, I really don't want to get too caught up in these dead letter marks. It looks like it could be a collection that could be very extensive if you decided to get carried away!!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
How does the dead letter office work?
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
22 Aug 2025
10:15:00am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
"How does the dead letter office work?"
Sorry, but I really don't know. Could someone who's more into postal history answer this?
EDIT: I'm much more into just collecting the stamps than other areas. Only a fool thinks he/she knows everything and it takes a bigger fool to think they can learn everything!! I guess that's why Google is there, just don't believe everything you read or see!! There is an awful lot of garbage being generated by fools using AI - scary stuff!!!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
When a letter cannot move forward to the addressee nor be returned to the sender, it goes to the dead letter office.
Those two things happen when the addressee doesn't live at the address and has not indicated a forwarding address (assuming he once did); the PO will often open the letter if there is nothing to indicate where the sender lives (hence many of those official seals, resealing the letter after opening).
In older days, many letters were addressed to the PO, where they were held until called for by the addressee; if that didn't happen in timely fashion, PO advertised the letter's existence in the local newspaper. If no response, dead letter here it goes.
David
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
These symbols (square,circle, triangle, and star) were first used in 1877 discounted in the 1950's!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
22 Aug 2025
03:19:34pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Thanks for the information. The star, triangle and circle are fairly easy to find... the square, since it was reserved for bulkier objects or parcels, is much more difficult! Can anyone show an example?
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Try Stamp Smarter
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
22 Aug 2025
04:21:03pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
It's actually a lot more fun and more useful to others if someone here can show one.
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Common sense it would be useful to check stamp smarter, beside it would not hurt to see what it has to offer!
I've been told by SOR I should not say COMMON SENSE, so change what I said to "it might be useful to" ...
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
There is an image of a square symbol on stamp smarter, for the dead letter office!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
22 Aug 2025
08:39:56pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
"There is an image of a square symbol on stamp smarter, for the dead letter office!"
Thanks, when I have a chance I'll have a look!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
01 Sep 2025
11:09:26am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
I have tried several times, in StampSmarter as well as other areas, to find an example of a square dead letter marking. Could someone either post a link to an example or show a picture? I just need to see one example! I know @1899 says there is an example on StampSmarter but I can't find it! Help please !!!!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Joe, go here and look at the second image. There is also a short paragraph regarding where it was used.
https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-pag ...
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Harvey:
Here is an image of the DLO envelope with a Square.
This is from a video on Stamp Smarter created by Don Denman on the Dead Letter Office. That video can be viewed here:
https://stampsmarter.org/Learning/album_ ...
This image appears at 11.21 minutes into the video and an explanation of the square symbol appears a few seconds later.
Edited to add...
It is the same cover which was illustrated in the Linn's article by Tony Wawrukiewicz, posted by sheepshanks about the same time I prepared this post.
MikeL
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
01 Sep 2025
12:32:48pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Thanks Vic and Mike, exactly what I needed!! Now I just need to find one at a price I think reasonable!! It is so nice to have someone answer a question without making you feel dumb for asking it. It really is a pleasure to deal with sensible people occasionally!
I have a triangle, circle and star now - the circle is on it's way! When the circle arrives I'll post a picture of the three items. This is not going to be a major collection, when/if I manage to find a square it will be finished! Since I can't find a copy of the square for sale (yet!!) I don't know when the collection will be "complete", if ever!!
EDIT: I watched the video, great material. I guess this is what @1899 meant when he said there was a picture of the square on StampSmarter. I wish I had watched the video instead of just searching the site for an image - my bad!! It's going to be difficult to find the square since its use was on undeliverable parcels. I guess, if I do find one, it'll probably be on piece instead of a cover!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Harvey:
Don't give up too soon. There are other symbols lurking, as well as interesting variants, mostly from more recent periods in time.
A Five Pointed Star, San Francisco, CA DLO, 1946
A Five Pointed Star, Chicago, IL DLO, 1952.
A "Square" with points on each side, San Francisco, CA DLO, 1958. I also have seen this on a 1922 DLO cover from San Francisco, CA.
A "Hollow" Triangle, San Francisco, CA 1941.
These are not from my collection, but items I have encountered and preserved from eBay. I have no knowledge of what the new symbols indicate.
MikeL
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01 Sep 2025
02:24:18pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Thanks (I think!!!) Mike. I'll keep my eyes open. I have a saved search on E-Bay that should turn these up. You do have to be specific with that saved search since there was a movie, which I never saw, called Dead Letter Office. The weird pointy square is especially odd!! If you have a spare square in you collection I would much rather buy from someone here than someone on E-Bay!! Thanks for the information though, I still think I'll consider that collection complete if a square ever shows. If I run into other items at reasonable prices I might be tempted!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
I don't have an example of a cover with the "Square" in my small collection.
I primarily collect the various forms that related to the Dead Letter Office in the 19th century. Most are either instructional to the Postmaster, or accompanied a Dead Letter to the local postmaster for delivery to the original sender or addressee - whichever could be identified.
Good luck with your search. Be patient. The examples with the non-standard symbols were observed over a ten year period, and while I don't "harvest" the scans every DLO cover I encounter, I do keep an eye open for the unusual items.
MikeL
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Canada Dead Letter Office
David Handelman exhibit on the Frajola Philamercury website.
https://www.rfrajola.com/mercury/DH9.pdf
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02 Sep 2025
08:53:15am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Great article, I'll post mark it later! Thanks!!
Joe
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
22 Sep 2025
10:50:21am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Mike I just picked up the same item with the "hollow Triangle" that you showed in your post below. Also, I just had to tell the person I ordered the "circle" from that it still hasn't arrived. A great item that I really wanted!! Hopefully it will still arrive, It's amazing how often items you got a good deal on don't show up!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Harvey,
Sorry you are having trouble with the purchase/delivery of the one cover. I think reaching out to the seller to see if he knows anything is the right thing to do, but unless there is tracking, he has no more control than you (or I ) do.
I have seen slow delivery of items myself here recently. A cover mailed with tracking from up in New York just spent eight days in a local loop before breaking out and heading to me in Texas. Informed delivery claims that I will get it today.
Going back in time about Dead Letter Office materials, here is a POD form from the Dead Letter Office from 1846. Note it was mailed to a town in Michigan, which only became a state in 1837, so it was probably still widely unsettled.
At the bottom of the page is a section that was removed by the postmaster. I believe this has the information associated with the undelivered cover, which the postmaster was required to remove and return with the results of his investigation.
While I have seen several similar letters/forms from this era, all have some missing pieces that make it difficult to actually determine just how the system worked and whether the investigations were successful.
And here is the front panel.
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22 Sep 2025
02:26:03pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Mike, great item of postal history!! I would like to kick myself in the butt for something I did years ago. They had just closed down the local post office next door. The post mistress gave me stuff to sell since I was running an antique store. I kept the postal sign which was original to the post office but sold her scales, postal hammer and various other things. I should have given her the money she wanted and kept the items, local history now gone! She was trying to give me the pigeon hole piece with the local names on it but I passed since I wasn't sure what to do with it - stupid, stupid, stupid!! She probably had a lot of postal documents that got chucked! But at least I still have the enamel Black Point Post Office sign to pass on to a local Heritage Center in nearby Hubbards!! At one time every small community had its own post office, now we all have those ugly super mail boxes!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Harvey:
Hindsight is wonderful but don't beat yourself up. We all make mis-judgements. My past is littered with great items I didn't buy at the time, and while I have improved my discipline, I still have non-buyers remorse several times a year when I chicken out because I erroneously throught the price was getting too high.
I have often hoped I would find an old post office with an archive of old forms (even from the mid 20th century would be great), and have come close. One newly appointed postmaster at a small PO in West Texas told me how he and his son had hauled several pickup truck loads of old post office papers to the city dump the previous year after taking over from the previous postmaster who had been there for 30 years (and apparently never cleaned out anything!).
The one time I did hit paydirt was with this group of papers from the post office at Newburgh, Maine. Virtually everything was dated between 1840 to 1860. It turned out that the building which housed the post office had been a General Store, and was owned by the same family from 1820 until 2020! The post office closed about 1910, but was kept as an informal museum which retained everything, until a new generation inherited it in 2020, and they wanted to sell it, so they had to clear it out, and there was one heck of an auction.
Rather than clutter this thread on the Dead Letter Office with that story, I have started a new thread with some of the items from that post office....
https://stamporama.com/discboard/disc_ma ...
Mike L
Edited from grammar.
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
23 Sep 2025
12:49:17pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Not really a mini collection but it seems like a good place. This is a fun collection I started a while ago, almost all stamps are from here. It's mostly done for the postmarks but eventually I'll figure out the Scott numbers for the stamps - some are done but not many! There are a few US stamps I like, obviously this is one of them! I doubt if I'll pick up more lots, just individual stamps with interesting postmarks!
EDIT: At some point in the future I might have a look through these stamps for EFO's but my main reason for this collection is postmarks and colour shades. There's a couple other early stamps I collecting (amassing actually) just for fun. I really like the early postmarks and at some point these groups of stamps are going to need some work!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Good luck, this lot will require a lot of work!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
25 Sep 2025
08:46:40am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
The collection was done mostly for post marks. I'm not really into searching for EFO's even though there must be some there. There are some ( about a third) that have to be done to see which stamp they are. If I notice EFO's in the process I'll make note. My eyesight and patience are the main problem areas.
My wife and I were sort of a philatelic team, I did the "grunt work", she did the "fine details". It was a question of patience and you can't really pretend to have it if you don't. I enjoy my collection and do it my own way - we're all different, I don't enjoy "fly specking", so why torture myself? Whoever has the collection next can fill in the details!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
06 Oct 2025
08:47:01am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Ran into these two on E-Bay at reasonable prices - the 5 pointed star and a different shaped triangle. I asked to seller to wait until after the strike to ship, he said he'd wait and then shipping was announced. I just hope they are safely held somewhere!!!
Here's the type of triangle I'm used to seeing, smaller equilateral!!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
13 Nov 2025
06:36:27pm
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
I was checking out E-Bay and found a dead letter cover with a circle mark. These are very hard to find so I have already picked up two. If anyone of you has started a collection of this material and is missing an example of the circle here is the third one I just discovered. The shipping is a bit high but possibly not for a US buyer! I have no need of another so I thought I'd pass it on.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/167916926589
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
thanks for sharing Joe!
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Back when I had a bunch! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
14 Nov 2025
08:41:25am
re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
Vince, I've read and visited the area and there's great information there. The circle is still hard to find so I just thought I'd mention there's one out there for sale, My collection is minor, just one or two / mark, and all I'm trying to find now is the square (real rare). If anyone sees one let me know!!
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re: An interesting mini collection I'm working on
vinman wrote above...
"Stamp Smarter site has an exhibit titled
“Operation and Innovation
in the Dead Letter Office from 1860-1985"
A direct link is here....
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MRrhe5a ...
MikeL
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