By Lloyd A. de Vries

Good thing I didn’t print my Dragon Cards for the United States Airmail stamps before seeing the design and measurements for the first-day cancels! Figure 1 shows my original design, which cropped (cut) from the photo several unnamed people at the launch of airmail service to New York City.

I figured chances were good those people wouldn’t complain!

The Digital Color Postmark measures 3.0 inches by 1.5 inches. The Pictorial Postmark was nearly as big, at 2.96 by 1.5.

The digital mock-up showed that that design would be like trying to fly from Washington to New York by following the train tracks south. (It didn’t work for the pilot that day, either.)

I re-edited the photo. Putting back the bystanders on the sides not only increased the width, it also decreased the height of the picture. The result (also a mock-up) is shown in Figure 2.

I also considered using my two vertical designs for dual cancels: One with the May 1 blue version of the stamp, and then with the August 11 carmine version. I expect similar first-day postmarks for the second stamp.

Again, I created a “mockup” and decided it could work, but the chances of failure were too high: No, no, discretion is the better part of valor. I’ll use a different design for the dual-canceled Dragon Cards.