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Non-collectors often ask me, “What’s the most valuable stamp in your collection?” I don’t actually collect stamps, I collect covers (envelopes with stamps and postmarks on them), but that’s too complicated for the non-collectors. And when I say, “I don’t know. I don’t collect for value,” the questioner isn’t satisfied.

However, shown here is what may be one of the most valuable first day covers in my collection: A ZIP Block first day cover for the $5 Railroad Lantern in the Americana Series of 1975-81, on a cachet designed and signed by James Schleyer, who also designed the stamp. I purchased the envelope at a stamp store near the National Mall in Washington, DC, along with his cachets for many of the other stamps in the series that he designed. I also serviced ZIP block FDCs on his cachets for the other high values in the series.

What’s it worth? Face value alone is $20. No one catalogues ZIP block FDCs, but I can’t imagine another FDC just like this one exists.

One of my collecting specialties is “official” cachets: A FDC produced by some person or entity with a connection to the stamp subject, often the force behind getting the stamp issued or the location where the first-day ceremony (launch ceremony) was held. I recently picked up this one from an American First Day Cover Society auction, although I may already have it: It was produced for the California-Pacific Exposition stamp (Sc. 773) by the exposition itself. The Planty/Mellone catalogues designate it as P11.

Also purchased in that AFDCS auction was this one, for the Transcontinental Railroad issue of 2019 (Sc. 5378-80), by Wile FDCs. The color picture is fabric.

I like train issues, although I’m hardly methodical enough to be called a train topicalist. This one appealed to me, so I bought it.

Another train first day cover (“cover” in a very broad sense) from the auction: An actual railroad spike, painted gold, with the Golden Spike (middle) stamp from 2019’s Transcontinental Railroad issue (Sc. 5379) and a circular date stamp. Cachetmaker Trevor Bills was the culprit!

And, no, it’s not my first three-dimensional FDC. Remember the FDC-in-a-bottle? Click here to read about that one.

Here’s another “official” cachet, for the 1964 Nevada Statehood centennial stamp (Sc. 1248). This also fits into my “oversized cover” specialty, because the envelope measures 9 inches by 12 inches.

Inside was a faux newspaper, with an article on the stamp “below the fold.” (For the second picture, I copied the article to the top half of the picture, to show off the paper’s masthead at the same time.)

This is bigger than most of my FDCs, and bigger than my albums, so I’m not sure where I’m going to put it.

Finally, it’s covers like the one below that I also purchased in the AFDCS auction #91 that make it hard to characterize my collection with a short, simple phrase: I bought it because it make me laugh, and it wasn’t very expensive. It isn’t official, it isn’t oversize, and it isn’t a ZIP block. It’s not actually a first day cover, in fact. For those who don’t recognize him, that veteran collector and cachetmaker Rollin Berger, having himself a ball. I also love the postmark!

It came about because Rollin noted the “CEC” signature on many recent AFDCS FDCs, and asked (tongue in cheek) if that stood for “Chuck E. Cheese.” It actually is “Cuv Evanson Cachets,” one of the tradenames used by Pete McClure. “FM” is Foster Miller, the other jokester here.

And I am proud to say that when my two sons were of that age, I never once went to a Chuck E. Cheese, even though there is one in the area. (I did, however, take them to a Chuck knockoff several times. And I bought them a subscription to Mad Magazine.)