First Day Covers

First day Cover collecting has existed as an organized branch of philately for a little over a hundred years. The first philatelically prepared First Day Cover that I have seen was a 1909 Lincoln memorial commemorative that was sent on a Lincoln postcard by the great early collector Phillip Ward. Ward was an avid collector of just about everything philatelic and FDCs were just a sidelight of his. FDCs had always existed. Penny Blacks are known on May 6, 1840 covers (their first day of issue), but it wasn’t until about 1910 that collectors began preparing and servicing FDC. And really serious FDC collecting began when cachet makers began plying their trade in the late 1920s. For many years, between 1930-1960, FDCs vied with plate blocks for first place in the US collecting pantheon. Both have decreased considerably in popularity in the last twenty years and the reason is because of the promiscuous issuing policies of the Post Office. In the 1950s the Post Office often issued less than ten stamps per year so collectors looked to FDCs and plate blocks to satisfy their philatelic interests. Since 1960, only a glutton needs more newer stamps than the USPS issues so collateral collecting has waned. It is interesting that though FDC collecting exists for other nations, it never assumed the ubiquity that it has with American collectors. Indeed, it wasn’t until after WW II that most European nations began to have cacheted FDCs and their style is remarkably American. No doubt the post war US occupation forces impacted European collecting in this regard, both as far as producing cachets and FDCs, and providing a market for them.

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