This is a Cinderella stamp. It’s also called a Poster stamp. This one is about 2″ horizontal and a little over 2″ vertical.
Some time ago, I bought a lot of advertising stamps and didn’t think too hard about doing any research on them.
Turns out (as you can read in the link above) everyone was Over.The.Moon for advertising stamps in the early part of the 20th century. I don’t know exactly what these wacky ancestors did with the stamps, since they seldom had glue on the back.
American Airlines called this flagship plane the DC-7 Mercury, coast-to-coast in around 8 hours. It flew for AA from 1953 to 1958 or so, when it became widely apparent that jet engines were the sexy new kid on the block.
Here’s the reverse of this card:
I paid $3 for these. I am stupid. I actually stand in front of the mirror in the mornings and say, “Please, Bob, don’t buy anything you don’t know anything about.” And how does that all work out for me? Each one of these is worth south of 30 cents. But they’re neat as hell. I only saw two others the same day (one was postmarked and one was torn in half…and postmarked).
I like airplane stuff. This 1941 carmine air mail stamp depicts a “transport” aircraft. It puzzled the heck out of me…looked like a Boeing, kind of, in the front, but that tri-tail is pure Constellation, sort of. A website pointed out that if the wing flaps were lowered, they would scrape the runway on landing. Anyway, it’s purely fictional, some ignisfatuus in the artist’s concept brain file. Well, I like ignisfatuus (’cause it’s obscure…a crossword thing), but it’s really just a mashup.
I found this at Tri-Cities Flea Market, next to the Boone River, in Bluff City or Piney Flats, your choice. Anyway, it’s a Bellanca 1730 with registration number N6650V. It’s a valid registration held by the RRS Viking Company LLC in Dothan AL. I paid $1 for it. It’s about 1″ wide nose to tail. Enamel.
Cool, huh?
Why, you ask, is the egregious example of tweeness interesting?
Okay, first, it’s dated. 1911, on the back.
It’s addressed to Blanche Gladson in Rogersville and I see a lot of cards addressed to her. It’s from her brother, Hal.
It’s pre-WWI, embossed, and probably lithographed in Germany. It was never mailed.
It’s got “postcard” printed in 13 different languages (it’s “open mail” in Russian) on the back. There’s also either a printer’s mark or a guild mark in the lower left on the back. Ask me if I care…
So, in Japanese, it’s “kawaii!”
From 1979. The Betavision came to the Japanese market in ’75.
Ah, progress!
Uncle Bob's Pix 