The single 14¢ American Indian stamp exactly pays the surface transportation rate then in effect for a letter weighing up to four ounces: 5¢ for the first ounce plus 3¢ per ounce for each of the additional three ounces.
14¢ American Indian cover mailed from New York, New York
A marking on the front of the envelope indicates it traveled aboard the SS Deutschland, a German ship that maid its maiden voyage from Hamburg to New York in 1924. An air attack in 1945 sank that vessel.
I have one other cover in my collection that shows the 14¢ stamp used by itself to pay this exact rate, albeit on an envelope mailed to China, but this is just about as scarce as they come!
Shriners Children’s squeezes in final BRE for 2024
We’re just about at the end of 2024, and there’s one more business reply envelope to share this year: one distributed in a Shriners Children’s mailing that I received in the mail last week.
Three stamp-sized designs are printed on the front of this envelope: one picturing a tree with heart-shaped leaves in several different colors; one picturing pink, orange, and purple balloons; and one picturing a pink butterfly and flowers.
Shriners Children’s business reply envelope with stamp-sized designs
As far as BRE designs go, these are rather muted, but they represent a variation I had not seen previously.
Purgatory Post commemorates Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh
With the end of 2024 drawing near, New Hampshire-based Purgatory Post recently issued a stamp commemorating musician Phil Lesh (1940–2024), who died October 25 at the age of 84.
The stamp was issued December 12.
Purgatory Post Phil Lesh stamp
Lesh was a founding member the Grateful Dead and bass guitarist for the group from its 1965 inception through its final performance in July 1995.
Purgatory Post’s new stamp has a face value of 11 sola. The stylized lettering including Lesh’s name and years of his birth and death is reminiscent of band posters and album art of the 1960s.
My dad recently ran across a batch of pictures and notes I made for my mother when I was a little kid. It has been nearly six years since we lost my mom to cancer, but seeing these old papers certainly made me feel wistful; I wish she could have lived longer and seen my daughter (her only grandchild) grow up. There’s also a bit of a sense of wonder at a mother’s love for her child that she would bother to save any of this stuff at all. I was certainly not a talented young artist!
Anyway, the reason I mention this here at all is that in the packet my dad sent to me were two notes that I apparently intended to look like envelopes.
Notes to mom and dad
Both “covers” bear hand-drawn 25¢ Love stamps, which dates them to somewhere in the 1988–1990 range. I’m intrigued that I was even aware of the postage rate; after all, I was a wee lad during that time frame, and I didn’t begin collecting stamps until 1992 or so.
At any rate, I feel confident in saying that these were my very first attempts at designing “stamps.” I’m still no artist, but thankfully my local post stamp design skills have improved!
APDA distributes snowflake BRE in December mailing
I wrote Wednesday about a Navigators business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized images of snowflakes. It seems that may be a popular theme this time of year as a mailing that arrived yesterday from the American Parkinson Disease Association contained a BRE that also had snowflake designs printed on it.
American Parkinson Disease Association business reply envelope with stamp-sized snowflake designs
Unlike the previous envelope I mentioned, which had only one design, this example has three, two oriented vertically and one horizontally, and each of the designs is surrounded by simulated printed perforations. That’s a nice touch; I think it makes the images look a little bit more like stamps.
