Early Classic U.S. Stamp Collection 1850's to 1940's. 

This extensive stamp collection features mainly early U.S. stamps, from the 1850's to the 1940's. We used Scott's Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps & Covers from 1924 to estimate value, we counted mint no gum stamps as used stamps, and we did not include damaged stamps (chips, cuts, short perfs) when we determined value. 
The most valuable album in the collection is the Scott International Junior Postage Stamp Album from 1941, with commemorative and definitive stamps and back-of-the book stamps worth about $11,700 in catalogue value. Highlights include Scott #7 (a used blue imperforate with Benjamin Franklin's portrait), Scott #10A used, #63, #68, #73, #93, #'s 112 - 117 all used, #134 136, #148, #150, #151, #157, #161, #163, #186, #187 or 188, #208 with a target cancel, #216, #228, Columbian #'s 238, 239, and 240 (all used), #260, Trans-Mississippi #'s 285 291, Pan Am Exposition #'s 294 299, Louisiana Purchase #'s 323 - 327 (323 and 324 are mint hinged), Jamestown Expo #'s 328 - 330 (328 and 329 are mint hinged), Pan Pacific #'s 397-400, #478 mint, #572 mint, a complete mint set of Kansas - Nebraska overprints (#'s 658 - 679), complete mint sets of the National Parks issues, perforate and imperf (#'s 740 - 749 and #'s 756 - 765), a Famous Americans mint set (#'s 859-893), and the stamps in this album go up to about 1948 or so. 
 
Back-of-the-book highlights include A) airmails: C1 - C6, all mint hinged, except for C6, which is mint never hinged, and the zeppelins C13 C15 are not here, but C18 is (mint lightly hinged); B) Special Delivery stamps include E1 - E7, all used, and E13 (mint never hinged), C) Postage Due: J26, J44 (both used); D) Official stamps include 016 - 018 (mint no gum), O21 (used), and 074 (mint hinged); E) a complete set of Parcel Post stamps (Q1 - Q12, with Q1 - Q9 all mint hinged and Q10 - Q12 used); F) about 180 revenue stamps from 1862 to 1949, with nice hand cancels and circular or oval dated cancels from the Civil War period, the highlights include R90c and R110, with other revenue stamps falling in the $10 to $40 range; a nice assortment of wine stamps (RE from 1916 to 1934), and an 1886 Grant sheet letter (U293 entire). 
The Duck Hunting stamps run from 1934 to 1951, starting with RW1 and running through RW18; RW1, RW3, and RW6 have no gum, RW2 is signed, RW4, RW5, RW7 - RW18 are mint never hinged, and RW13 - RW18 have words on the back; and the duck stamps go for about $2670 in the Scott catalogue all by themselves. 
There is a Confederate States of America 10-cents stamp featuring Jefferson Davis at the bottom of the first page of the duck hunting stamps, the stamp is greenish blue and has no frame line on the outer edges, it is cancelled and was printed between 1863 and 1864, and it is probably #11c, with a chip at the top. 
A complete set of Famous American plate blocks and blocks of four (all mint) are at the rear of the album, the plate blocks include #859 - 863, 866, 867, 871, 872, 874 - 876, 879-886, 888- 890, 892 and 894 and the rest are blocks of four; there are also Airmail plate blocks at the rear, including C25 - C31 (all mint). 
There's a separate white envelope in front of the title page with two stamps inside that fell out of the album (a green three-cent Washington type A46 and a $1 green documentary stamp). 
Most of the stamps are in archival plastic mounts, and if you see any scotch tape in the photos, the tape does not touch the stamps, it was just used to hold the archival mounts in place if they fell out of the album. 
Other items in the collection include a) two Minkus stamp albums from 1968 (The New World Wide Stamp Album): the first one has 550 U.S. definitive and commemorative stamps, 68 
back-of-the-book stamps and 4 mint blocks of four, and 855 foreign stamps; the second Minkus album has 612 U.S. definitive and commemorative stamps, including 40 back-of-the- book stamps, 93 foreign stamps, counting 15 Japanese stamps in a separate envelope at the front of the album, both albums contain mint and used stamps, all hinged, and both albums are in very good condition. 
b) The Constitution Stamp Album for Stamps of the United States of America (published by Whitman in 1966), with 406 mint and used stamps (all hinged), 1 souvenir sheet, and 1 plate block, the album is in very good condition, the stamps are not high value. 
c) Frontiersman Stamp Album for Stamps of the United States (published by Whitman in 1967), with 67 stamps, mainly used stamps (all hinged), a clean album in very good condition, a good starter album for kids. 
d) a 2013 US / BNA Postage Stamp Catalog, spiral bound (published by Harris), with color images; the price guide is outdated, but a great identifier for U.S. stamps, Federal and State Duck stamps, Hawaiian stamps, Canadian stamps (including Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), and the catalog is in great condition. 
e) a glassine folder with 48 sheets of U.S. stamps and three partial sheets, all mint never hinged; the sheets are from the 1940's and include one six-cent airmail sheet and a 3-cent sheet celebrating Florida's Centennial and another featuring the Florida Everglades, as well as the FDR set from 1945 1946 (Scott numbers 930-934); all the full sheets have plate numbers and with a total face value of $80.70 and the partial sheets have a face value of $2. The only blemish is a vertical fold on one 2-cent sheet (Scott #907). 
f)a manila envelope with loose US postage inside that can be used for mailing letters. The regular postage comes to $29.17 in face value and the airmail postage comes to $6.30 in face value, all are mint never hinged. 
g) a 1980 USPS commemorative set (item number 700 from the Post Office), with twelve 15 cent stamps inside and four blocks of four, all mint never hinged and a face value of $4.20. 
h) a facsimile memento folder featuring the 10-cent airmail stamp (Scott C76) with special cancellations dated July 20, 1969 and September 9, 1969, to commemorate the first landing on the moon, with facsimile signatures of President Richard Nixon and astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edward E. Aldrin Jr. (Buzz Aldrin), and Michael Collins. Actual first day covers of the moon landing with genuine signatures range from $100 to $4000. 
i) a small group of postal covers from the United States and foreign countries: eight U.S. covers including one from 1942 with a "Passed by Naval Censors" mark, a 1948 cover with a railroad cachet marking the 25th anniversary of the High Point Thomasville & Denton connection in North Carolina, and an airmail letter from 1948 with a great cachet of Capital Airlines out of Washington D.C. to commemorate Capital Airlines' First Air Mail Flight to Mobile, Alabama and an accompanying letter and colored map from the City of Six Flags; there are thirteen foreign pieces from the late 1930's to the early 1940's, including two from Canada with a large V for Victory cancel on two 1941 covers, as well as covers from Australia, Mexico and Russia from that time period. 
j) Supplies include a package of Interleaving glassines produced by Minkus; the glassines are placed between stamp pages to protect the stamps on those pages; the package originally contained 100 glassine leaves and now there are only about 65 glassines left, the rest were placed in some of the albums in this collection. There is also a packet of Quadrilled-Blank 
pages for Minkus World-Wide albums; the packet originally had 50 pages in it, there are only 38 left, and the rest have been used to mount stamps in the albums here. 
k) The collection also includes an 8 x 7" letter from Admiral Rickover written in 1967 on a letterhead from the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington DC. It is signed by Admiral Rickover at the bottom and we believe his signature is genuine. (It is not part of a mass mailing, but written to a single individual with specific contents, and it matches his signature.) Rickover (1900-1986) was an admiral in the US Navy who pushed for the development of nuclear powered submarines in the 1950's this followed the development of the atomic bomb in the Manhattan project in the 1940's - and he was called "The Father of the Nuclear Navy" and considered one of the most important figures in the history of the Navy. The letter has a tear on the left side, and we estimate the Rickover letter and signature to be worth between $200 to $400. 
The Scott International Junior Album is worth about $11,700 all on its own, according to Scott's specialized catalogue. Then add in the other albums, the mint sheets and postage and the Rickover letter to figure value... 
With thanks to the Sarasota Philatelic Club in Sarasota, Florida for helping us correctly identify Scott #7 and other early stamps from the 1850's in the International Junior Album. We weren't sure if Scott #7 was actually Scott number 5 or 5A, which would have been worth a whopping $50,000 or $6500, but it was just Scott #7, which is only worth a measly $150 in Scott's 2024 Specialized Catalogue. Ah, well. 

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