This was the marquee at the Holiday Inn diner at Union Avenue and McLean where I played the piano in the 1990's.

I had lots of fun there.

The 8th annual Jackass Mail Run took place on April 5th, 1969.

The mail was carried on the back of a jackass between Porterville, California and Springville, California, about 17 miles, on that historic day.

The cost to send the mail with a jackass was "four bits" or fifty cents.

This piece of mail was picked up by the jackass in Porterville, California and delivered to the post office in Springville, California the same day, Saturday April 5th, 1969 on the circular date stamp.

The four cent vertical coil Lincoln stamp, Scott #1058, is pencil line cancelled,

The vertical coil Roosevelt stamp, Scott #1305, is cancelled with the April 5, 1969 circular date stamp featuring the 93265 zip code of Springville, California with the seven bar wavy line machine cancel across the local post jackass.

Once the mail arrived in Springville it was cancelled and sent to the addressee in New York via airmail.

The handstamped "Via Jackass Mail" cachet adorns this monumental cover on the left.

This beautiful jackass cachet is also on the back of the cover.

Helgoland (Heligoland to the English and on the stamps) is located in the North Sea about 30 miles from Schleswig-Holstein and sixty miles from the great Elbe river port of Hamburg. It was taken from the Danish and given to the British as a part of the settlement following the Napoleonic wars. While the British used it for its naval facilities and tourism, it was mainly inhabited by local fisherman and farmers.

Scott Catalog numbers 1 through 21 are represented here, 1867 to 1888. 

Stamps were issued for "Heligoland" from 1867 through 1890 under a complex arrangement between the British and the Germans. The postal administration was tied to Hamburg and to Germany after the unification in 1872. Stamps were printed by the Prussian printing office, which became the Reich Druckerei after unification, for German speaking people, but the stamps continued to feature the profile of Queen Victoria.

From 1875 its postage stamps were denominated in both sterling and gold marks.

In 1890 the British conveyed the island to Germany in exchange for some African territory. Heligoland came under the Reich postal administration and began to use the stamps of Germany.

 As a result of this change, Heligoland stamps became the past issues of a "dead territory" and very collectable.

There were more than twenty reprintings of the stamps for collectors in the nineteenth century, some of them official, some semi-offical, and a few restricted to private printings. Very few of the reprintings were actually "forgeries." A million and a third valid stamps were printed for use, but only about half of them were used. The rest were bought for resale to collectors. There were between five and seven million reprints depending on the source of confirmation.

The islands, with a population 1,127, are located in the Heligoland Bight which are part of the German Bight in the southeastern corner of the North Sea. They are the only German islands not in the immediate vicinity of the mainland. They lie approximately 69 kilometres (43 miles) by sea from Cuxhaven at the mouth of the River Elbe.

All Heligoland stamps are scarce, even the reprints if you're lucky enough to discover them.

However, please remember that forged cancellations are numerous because of the extreme rarity of Heligoland cancels. Have them expertised by the Amarican Philatelic Society expertising service, Stamps.Org.

I'm delighted to share 22 unused examples, and one cancelled, from my collection with you.

It's unkonwn at this time if they're reprints, forgeries or original.

In 1906 Arthur Wülbern published a little book called ORIGINALE UND NEUDRUCKE VON HELGOLAND. 

Original and Reprints of Heligoland.

To quote the late Mr. Wülbern:

Reprint: "That word alone is a horror for many collectors, for beneath the mask of originals creep the bastard stamps which appear as legitimate parts of a collection. Perhaps in no Country do reprints play such a large, remarkable and dangerous role as in Heligoland. One might expect Heligoland reprints to show weak embossing, junky printing, etc. and therefore be easily distinguishable. On the contrary, however, the reprints (especially the Berlin reprint of the 6 Schilling stamp) appear more professionally done and aesthetically attractive than the orginals.

It must be mentioned that one of the main methods of recognition, sometimes the only method, is by examining the stamp colors. Since Heligoland stamps display two or sometimes three colors, identification is made easier; but on the otherhand the many printings of the originals make identification more difficult and this difficulty is made greater by the varieties of issues of reprints. In any case, this area is one of the most difficult in Philately."

It's believed that the name Heligoland in origin means "Holy Land" (the modern Dutch and German heilig, "holy"). Several alter native theories have been considered throughout centuries, explaining that it's the name of the Danish king Heligo or from the ancient Frisian Germanic word hallig, meaning "salt marsh island".

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests an etymology of "Hallaglun, or Halligland, i.e. 'land of banks, which cover and uncover'".

I believe that Heligoland translated is "Holyland".

Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and a five-time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

On June 30, 1918 Debs was arrested and charged with sedition and went to prison on April 13, 1919.

He ran for president of the United States from his prison cell and received nearly a million votes.

The Socialist Party of Tennessee had an active chapter in Memphis.

This rare brochure, part of my collection, was a appeal to voters to support the Socialist Party Ticket.

It was printed in Memphis on October 15th, 1920.

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a windy beach in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.

Here's a first day cover from my collection that commemorates the 46th anniversary of that flight and heralds the return of the The Wright Flyer 1, the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, US. Today, the airplane may be seen at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

Scott #C45 airmail, The Wright Brothers Issue, is tied to the first day cover by the first day bar cancel in addition to the Kitty Hawk, North Carolina circular date stamp of December 17, 1949, 9-AM.

And the great cachet.

This is a House of Farnum cachet. Notice the initials "HF" at the bottom left of the lower wing.

Great example of historic aviation philately !

M.C. sent this postcard to Loretta Cook on May 21, 1918.

The postcard looks like it was given to M.C. by the American Red Cross, Richmond, Virginia Chapter's Canteen Committee from the purple hand stamp to the left of the three cent violet Washington, Scott #501.

He penned his message on Monday.

It was postmarked on Tuesday.

"Mon. am. Am O.K. except R.R. pick. Good bye. God bless you. Write soon. Hope M.C."

I like the dual seven line wavy machine cancellations. The top cancel on the stamp and the upside down bottom cancel. Wonder why the card went through the machine twice ?

Here's a better look at Scott #501, the upper right machine cancel and Red Cross handstamp.

The seven bar machine cancel is most likely a Universal Machine Cancel which entered into use in 1909.

And the piece de resistance:

What in the hell does it mean ? " I should worry become a hunter and catch a deer " ???

It means that he's worried that his lover will cheat on him while he's away at war and that the only thing he can do is bag a cervid instead of a trophy wife after she shafts him.

The first world war was over, but the agression still lingered.

Loretta Clark lived in Memphis and corresponded with soldiers.

She got this postcard from a jewish soldier, a member of the First Company, Regiment 11, in 1919 after he had returned to America on the U.S.S. South Dakota on July 19th, 1919.

The ship was anchored in Hempstead, New York on the Atlantic Ocean.

"We landed July 19th, 1919. Will say I was mighty glad to get back to America. Will write again."

The stamp, Scott #498, is tied to the postcard by the Hempstead, New York, July 21, 1919, 6PM, circular date stamp and military flag wavy machine cancellation.

This scarce postcard was provided to our jewish soldiers and others by theJewish Welfare Board, United States Army and Navy, for soldiers arriving on U.S. shores and in this case returning to Camp Mills Long Island, New York.

I'm proud to have this fine postcard in my collection.

The other setenant undocked.

Scott #1570 Apollo-Soyuz undocked

The ArtCraft Cachet

The Cape Kennedy circular date stamp and first day of issue cancellation.

Collecting space covers can be very rewarding.

The US Postal Service issued a setenant pair of two 10-cent multicolored stamps on July 15, 1975, at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

The stamp, Scott #1569, represents the docking of the Apollo-Spyuz mission.

Two nations collaborated on a space project for the first time.

In July 1975, the United States launched the manned Apollo Command to rendezvous with Russia's manned Soyuz spacecraft. A special docking station made it possible for the astronauts to work together.

Television stations worldwide broadcast the historic event. The modules remained docked for two days while the teams performed experiments in space.

Along with the circular date stamp and first day of issue bar line cancellation, the first half of the setenant pair of stamps portrays the docking of the two spacecraft.

The ArtCraft cachet beautifully portrays this great moment in the history of space exploration.

The other half of the setenant, "before the link-up", will be posted for you soon.

The Comoro Islands, officially the Union of the Comoros, is a sovereign archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel off the eastern coast of Africa between northeastern Mozambique and northwestern Madagascar. Other countries near the Comoros are Tanzania to the northwest and the Seychelles to the northeast. Its capital is Moroni, on Grande Comore. The Union of the Comoros has three official languages – Comorian, Arabic and French. The religion of the majority of the population is Islam.

This great souvenir sheet was issued in 1975 to commemorate the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous and docking mission in space.

Scott #163 Comoro Islands issued December 15, 1975

President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration by executive order on May 11, 1935. It was established by Act of Congress on May 20, 1936 and authorized to serve as a lending agency and develop a program for rural electrification. The REA became part of the Department of Agriculture.

The stamp, issued on May 11, 1985 in Madison, South Dakota, is Scott #2144 on an Art Craft cachet.

In March of 1972, NASA launched spacecraft Pioneer 10 to gather information about Jupiter.

The 10-cent Pioneer commemorative stamp was issued on February 28, 1975 in Mountain View, California, and beautifully represented in this Art Craft cachet and first day of issue cover.

Scott #1556

This great Cachet Craft first day cover, Scott catalog #993, was issued in Jackson, Tennessee on April 29th, 1950.

Click any scan for more.