Kansas Nebraska Overprints properly used

Ahh, Beatrice. Pronounced "be-AT-triss" with all emphasis on the second syllable. Unless you're a member of my family, in which case it's "BEET-rice" (also used as an affectionately teasing nickname a'la "goofball").

In the southeast corner of Nebraska, about halfway between Beatrice and the Missouri border, lies the town of Tecumseh. Long before the interstate highway system was built, people in Tecumseh relied on transportation other than automobiles to get around. North of Tecumseh is the capitol city of Lincoln. To the south is Atchison and Topeka in Kansas and quite a ways to the southwest is Santa Fe, New Mexico. Popularized in a song by Judy Garland (before my time), these towns were all accessible to the folks in Tecumseh via a railway system that crossed the Nation. Mails were moved by rail starting way back in 1830. Mobile post offices were installed in railroad cars to connect towns via the mails and to process the mails in route. Today I've added the following Railway Post Office, or RPO, cover to the collection.



A receiving mark on the back indicates it arrived at Grand Central Station in NYC on Aug 20, 1930.  Three days travel across half the country.  It was only $3.75 on EBAY, including shipping

Yeah it is!...more more!!!

Kansas appears 6 times on the illustrated cover:
1. Return address - "Kansas" Federation of Women's Clibs
2. Return address - Wilson, "Kansas"
3. Address - Fourth district, "K(ansas)" F(ederation of) W(omen's) C(lubs)
4. Address - Peabody, "Kansas"
5. Postmark - Wilson, "Hansas" (faint)
6. And, of course, the overprint on the stamp.

I haven't decided whether to buy the next cover It is kind of pricy; about $30 including shipping. but it has some nice things going for it.



First of all, the postage is not an overpayment. First class mail increased from 2c to 3c on July 6, 1932 with the promise that it would go back down on July 1, 1834. The decrease did not happen and the rate stayed at 3 cents into the 1950s. Second, the April 1933 usage is rather late for this series. The flag cancel is also very nicely applied.

Finally, Burwell is a very small town in central Nebraska with a 2010 population around 1200. The hotel corner advertisement does make sense because ever year since 1921 Burwell has had hundreds of visitors in late July when the town hosts its annual rodeo, billed as Nebraska's BIG Rodeo. The promise of running water in the dusty summer in central Nebraska was probably worth the extra $1, even in the economically tough days of the Great Depression

(The process of doing the write-up convinced me to add this cover to the collection but it may turn out to be far more costly than I imagined.  When I showed it to my wife and explained a bit about the town, her response was "Rodeo?  Let's go!")

Zuzu, It's clear that the thread has touched you in a very personal way. This is what stamp collecting should do more often. Receiving letters, especially back before computers and instant messaging, was a very personal way of hearing from friends and loved ones. One can only imagine what the letter said. Perhaps "Dear Mom, Dad and I are having a great time at the Rodeo ..." Collecting Postal History certainly brings the human element back into the hobby. I can almost see the woman at the door receiving the letter from the carrier. Nice screen shot from the street view of Google Earth (I assume)!

The cause was "Unclaimed"

Hi Jen, 1930 was a bit early for the dust bowl. The 1920's were unusually wet and farming greatly expanded in Kansas, particularly as the state was settled by returning veterans from WWI and the Homestead Act was modified to increase the size of free land farms. The droughts got underway in 1931 and, by 1934, the dust bowl was destroying farms in the Plains.

I found a reference to a Fred Scott in 1931, as the 71 year old publisher of the Argonia Argosy, a small newspaper. Argonia is southeast of Hoisington in central Kansas. On today's roads, which predominantly run NS and EW, the distance between them is 137 miles but by horseback, oxen or mule, a more direct route across the Plains would have been around 100 miles. Still much too far for a daily commute. If it's the same Fred Scott that the letter was addressed to, he simply moved away from Hoisington.

Rod222, Thanks for interpreting the handstamp. I should have realized it was held at the Post Office since there was no street address on the cover. Hoisington started Rural Free Delivery in 1904 so, presumably, Mr. Scott lived and worked in town rather than on a farm. That would support the idea that he was a newspaper publisher but it may prove very difficult to follow this up. Perhaps the original letter is still with the envelope. If so, I will report its contents when it arrives from the EBAY seller. More likely, the lawyer would have destroyed the contents when the letter was returned. (Still, he kept the envelope, so who knows?)

Not much happening this week. I found a few very nice covers that really got me going until I realized that they were all out-of-state- usages. One was a registration cover with 2 four cent Martha Washington from Kansas (#662), an 8 cent from the 1902 series and a 1 cent Franklin w/o overprint to make up the 17 cent registration rate. Unfortunately it was mailed from Pennsylvania. The second cover had 2 8c Grants (#666), a 2 cent red and a 1 cent Franklin (#658) on a registration cover from Connecticut. Finally, tonight, were 2 8 cent airmail covers from 1934! The one with the Kans stamp (#666) was mailed from Wyoming. The 8 cent Nebr stamp (#677)was mailed from Louisiana. None of these are going to be added to the collection. Here is the Kansas overprint 8c airmail cover.



A real shame to have to let this one go by.

I ran across some make up rate covers that I'd like to share. The 1st class postage rate changed from 2c to 3c on July 1, 1932. By this time the 4th Bureau stamps, and overprints, had been replaced by the Washington Bicentennials and some 2c commemorative stamps, known collective as the 2 cent reds. So, as today, the lower value stamps were used to make up the new rate. This led to some interesting mixed franking covers.



This one is quite interesting. The one cent postal stationary cover was revalued to 1 1/2 cents and then a 1 1/2 cent Nebr was added to make up the 3 cent rate. The cover was mailed from Bradshaw, Nebraska to Pennsylvania in 1933.

Here's a third example using postal stationary. In this case a registered letter was mailed from Elkhart, Kansas to Dodge City, Kansas. The backstamps indicate the letter was mailed on July 14, 1930 and received on July 16th. The postage was made up with two copies of 667, the 9c Jefferson overprint stamp.



I am now up to 14 of the 22 different stamps.

Here is another with a mixed franking mailed in 1933 using the Winter Olympics 2 cent red honoring the games in Lake Placid, NY.



Notice the return address on this cover and the addressee on the previous one. There was a clear relationship between the senders of the two covers. Given the number of covers I have seen mailed to Mr conkey, I suspect a group of men were mailing each other covers showing various stamp usages, postmarks, etc. Kind of like texting or emailing today. I hope they didn't get into trouble. During the Great Depression would have been a tough time to lose your job playing with your hobby on company time (or, at least using company office supplies for personal use.

This may assist.  Ran across this on the web.