Edison First Day Brings High Price! - New Jersey Postal History ...

Robert G. Rose ~ ON THE AUCTION SCENEON THE AUCTION SCENE: New Jersey First Day CoversBy Robert G. RoseHow often have we sat at a dealer’s booth at a stamp show, quickly looking through a box ofcommon looking, non-descript covers in the hopes of finding a better item for our collections? Andhow many times have we passed over a valuable cover simply because it looked so common? Giventhe increasing collector interest in early first day covers and those bearing earliest documented usages(“EDU’s), chances are that many of those boxes of “common” covers have been carefully picked overby specialists with knowledge of the significant dates.Such a nondescript looking cover recently sold at auction for the astounding hammer price of$32,500 to which was added a 10% buyer’s commission. This remarkable cover, sold in the publicauction sale of the Dr. Alfred S. Martin Collection, 1 is illustrated below in Figure 1. 2Fig. 1: 2 Cent Lake of the 1890 Issue, cancelled at Newark, NJ.This cover is the only recorded first day cover of any stamp in the “small” 1890 BanknoteIssue. The 2 cent lake, Scott 219D, is tied by a “Newark, N.J. Feb 22 10AM 90” duplex postmark ona locally used cover. According to the catalog description, although many values of the 1890 Issuewere distributed to over 400 post offices, this is the only known first day cover of the entire issue.The Martin Collection included a complete showing of the ½ cent to $5.00 denominations ofthe 1922-26 Issue. Included in this series was the 12 cent Grover Cleveland (Scott 564) first day coverillustrated below in Figure 2. 3Vol. 33/No. 2NJPHWhole No. 158 57May 2005