Category United States

Feb 26 2012

FDC by S&T Cahcets

This first day cover is by Tom O’Hagan of S &T Cachets.  The illustration is from an trade card for Ayers Ague Cure, which claimed to cure fever and chills.  The stamp (Scott 2950) was issued in 1995 for the 150th Anniversary of Florida Statehood.

Ayer’s Ague Cure was one of a number of “medicines” manufactured by the J.C. Ayer’s Co. during the 19th century.  The Ague Cure, which claimed to cure all “afflictions which arise from milarious, marsh, or miasmatic poisons”, was made of alcohol and chincona bark (quinine) and so probably actually had some effect.  Ayer’s other products included Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral (which purportedly a cure for coughs and contained either morphine or heroin), Sasparilla (which claimed to cure jaundice, syphilis, ringworm, boils, ulcers, “female weaknesses” and rheumatism), and Hair Tonic.  The Ayer’s Almanac, discussed here, is worth taking a look at.

Original Ayer's Ague Cure Trade Card

Jul 15 2011

U.S. Naval Cover: U.S.S. DuPont

A naval cover, according to the Naval Cover Museum, is “any envelope, postcard, or other postal medium that is mailed from or somehow related to a navy ship, location, or event. Beginning in 1908, post offices were established on board U.S. Navy ships and each ship had one or more postmarks to “cancel” the stamps used on the cover. The postmark, or cancellation, would usually have the ship’s name and the date that the cover was cancelled.”

This cover, postmarked May 13, 1933, Navy Yard, Boston, MA, is from the U.S.S. Du Pont (DD-152).  Named for Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont (yes, he was one of those Du Ponts), the destroyer was launched in 1918 and (apparently these are different things) commissioned in 1919.  At the time this cover was mailed, the Du Pont was operating out of Boston as a training vessel.  With the outbreak of World War II, she was recommissioned (for the second or third time) and became part of the Neutrality Patrol; eventually, she escorted convoys across the Atlantic and was one of the ships that brought casualties back from Normandy.  She was decommissioned for the last time in 1946 and sold in 1947.

When I get old covers, I like to see what I can find out about the addressee–in this case Ralph R. Spiker of New Philadelphia, OH.  It seems that he was a collector of naval covers–several have turned up on eBay and other auction sites.  He died in 1982.
The remaining question here:  why the frog cachet?  I can’t discover any connection to the U.S.S. Du Pont, no frogs in insignia or anything like that.  My guess is that it’s an add-on.  Oh, well.  It’s still an awesome frog.
Apr 24 2011

Orbiting Frog Otolith

When I first bought these covers, I thought, not unreasonably, that an otolith was some kind of rocket, like the nice pink-and-white striped one pictured in two of the cachets below.  But it turns out that the otolith is a structure in the inner ear that has something to do with balance, which, in turn, has something to do with how we react to gravity.  So, if you’re NASA and want to study whether or not weightlessness causes disorientation, what do you do?  You send two bullfrogs into space, of course!
 
 
 
On November 9, 1970, two bullfrogs were launched into space from Wallops Island, Virginia.  These brave astronauts had monitors surgically implanted in their ears–the frog’s otolith is structurally similar to that in humans–and the experiment was a success!  The data showed that the frogs were disoriented for the first three days but, according to the insert in one of the covers, “on the 4th day they calmed down as though recondiled to the unusual lack of gravity and behaved toward the end of the experiment almost as they had done before the launching.”   
 
 
And the fate of the frogs?  Did they return to earth for a ticker-tape parade?  Alas, no.  They orbited the earth for a week, but they were never recovered. 
 
The frogs have a Facebook page; as yet, I’m the only fan.
 

Apr 10 2011

Rayne, LA Frog Festival

Thie city of Rayne, Louisiana, calls itself the Frog Capital of the World (also the Louisiana City of Murals, which feature frogs) and is host each year to the Rayne Frog Festival.  There is, of course, a frog jumping contest.   Rayne’s claim to their title comes from a thriving frog export business, begun in the 1880s and lasting until the 1960s when population growth and habitat change caused a drop in the frog population.  But it was good while it lasted–even Sardi’s in New York City got their frog legs from Rayne.  The festival started in 1973. 
 
My two event covers, both hand-drawn and hand-colored, are from the early 1980s. 
Jan 24 2011

Cachets on FDCs (United States, 1990-1991)

Scott No.: 2449
Date of Issue:  April 18, 1990
City of Issue:  Brooklyn, NY
Stamp:  Marianne Moore
Cachet Maker:  Maximum Card

 

Marianne Moore (1887-1972), an American poet, is perhaps most famous for a poem entitled “Poetry” , which begins with some of the best lines in American Literature: 

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important
                beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,
                one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.

Later, we find the lines that occasion these cachets: 

One must make a distinction
    however: when dragged into prominence by half
                     poets,
                the result is not poetry,
    nor till the autocrats among us can be
        “literalists of
        the imagination” – above
            insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads
                in them, shall we have
    it.

Cachet Maker:  Steve Wilson

Jan 24 2011

United States

Scott No.: 2086
Date of Issue:  May 11, 1984
City of Issue:
Species:  North American Bullfrog
Occasion:  Louisiana World Exposition

The theme of the 1984 Louisiana World Expo was “The World of Rivers: Fresh Water as a Source of Life.”  The fair didn’t do so well–bankruptcy was declared before it ended–but it was the occasion of this U.S. stamp.   Birds on this stamp include the Louisiana Heron, the Anhinga, and the Canada Goose.

Scott No.:  3105g
Date of Issue:  October 2, 1996
City of Issue: San Diego, CA
Species:  Wyoming Toad
Set: Engangered Species (15 stamps)

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wyoming Toad (Bufi baxteri), which was  found only in Albany County, Wyoming, is a “glacial relict” which inhabited ponds and flood plains.  It was abundant through the 1970s and placed on the endangered list in 1984.  A number of zoos now have breeding programs.  The Wyoming toad grows to be about 2.2 inches long and is covered in warts.