W1701s

Sea Creatures

Sea Mammals

Fred Collins Signature

Collins Cover Announcement 

CREATURES OF THE SEA

With all four Sea Creature stamps -- Sea Lion, Dolphin, Killer Whale, and Sea Otter -- this COLLINS is the fifth and final one of my unique and beautiful set. With hand-painted cachets and wonderful exclusive, related First Day postmarks, the FDCs have to be the finest produced for the issue. Without a doubt.

To briefly review what it took to achieve these historic covers on Day of Issue, it was a five person project from early morning in Baltimore until the various post offices from Maine to Virginia closed in the evening. It was a pressure-packed day working against the ever-ticking clock.

After buying the new stamps, all five of us present put on the Killer Whale and Dolphin singles. Neighbors Barbara and Hank were then on their way to Whaleyville and Dolphin, Virginia for those great unofficial cancels. Immediately, my son Tim and I took off on a chartered private flight (expensive) to Maine for those terrific unofficial cancels from Otter Creek and Seal Harbor, Maine. Our friend Maureen remained in Maryland to do this fifth and final cover. It has all four stamps. Two are canceled with the official Baltimore bullseye postmark. For the opposite pair, Maureen headed south toward Annapolis, east across the Chesapeake Bay, south again on Maryland's eastern shore, and finally east again until stopped by the coast where the Atlantic Ocean meets America. Here, at the Ocean City Post Office with the waves rolling in on a near-by beach, this cover received its unofficial Day of Issue cancel. For Sea Creatures, what could be better than "Ocean City"? It is a little faint and the stamp colors make it somewhat difficult to read but it is "readable and real" and actually obtained on Day of Issue at seaside. A great final piece to be added to the other four singles.

The hand-painted cachet is dedicated to those gentle giants of the depths -- whales. It is a completely underwater scene and I try to achieve a "rays of light" effect as the sun filters downward from the surface. In the foreground, a baby pilot whale nurses at the side of its mother. In the distance, a humpback whale is about to break the surface as it swims upward. As you can imagine, it took very careful planning to accommodate all four stamps, two postmarks, and the hand-painted cachet.

To produce a set of covers like this is very expensive. The unavoidable charter flight to obtain the Maine cancels on time was, of course, the single highest expense but other costs for a five person, far-flung expedition are also very high. Accordingly, I must charge a little extra but I know that these are truly historic First Day Covers that will be treasured and apprediated forever by present and future collectors. What other cachetmaker would attempt in a single business day to obtain First Day postmarks from Seal Harbor, Maine; Dolphin, Virginia; Ocean City, Maryland; Otter Creek, Maine; and, Whaleyville, Virginia? None but COLINS. In a nutshell, it is covers such as these that make your collection of COLLINS FDCs truly meaningful. It is why the reputation of COLLINS will always be among the leaders of the hobby.

When this set was completed I felt good. It is a pleasure to offer the fifth and final COLLINS Sea Creature cover. 

Item #W1701. $12.50.

Still Available at $12.00 each

W1702 - Killer Whale - Whaleyville, Virginia 

W1703 - Sea Lion - Seal Harbor, Maine 

W1704 - Sea Otter - Otter Creek, Maine 

W1705 - Common Dolphin - Dolphin, Virginia

Summer 2024 Mail Sale Commentary 

Lot 14 W1701 to W1705 — Sea Mammals set of five — 10-3-90

This min-set of five covers combines the very best elements of the hobby — large, colorful stamps dealing with a popular topic, "entire" hand-painted cachets which use the complete the face of the envelope, and outstanding first day postmarks. To accomplish our lofty goal of getting all of the desired, related cancels, it took five people, multiple cars, a chartered plane, and a lot of luck.

Wow! The stamps were issued in Baltimore, Maryland where we all spent the night before the stamps were released, and several of my friends as well as my son Tim and I were poised to go in three directions first thing in the morning on the day of issue to seek wonderful, related cancels on the Sea Mammals stamps that had just been purchased. 

Barbara and Hank took two of the stamps — the dolphin and killer whale — and while Hank drove, Barbara separated the stamps and placed them on the envelopes. When they reached Dolphin, Virginia, they had the envelopes with the dolphin stamp canceled with a magenta first day of issue postmark. Then they resumed their journey southward, stopping just before reaching North Carolina where the killer whale covers were canceled with a Whaleyville, Virginia cancel with killer bars on the opposite pair.

Meanwhile our friend Maureen drove Tim and me to the airport to catch a chartered plane after which she returned to the hotel to put stamps on the covers that she was getting canceled that day. She drove to the post office where two of the four stamps received a Baltimore, Maryland bullseye postmark. For the other pair of stamps, Maureen headed south down Maryland's famed Eastern Shore where she had her covers canceled with a day of issue cancel from Ocean City. This is a perfect cancel for the Sea Mammals mini-set, however the cancels are faint.

While Maureen, Barbara and Hank were working on obtaining cancels in Virginia and Maryland, Tim and I headed north in the chartered plane and finished putting stamps on our envelopes just as we landed in Bangor, Maine. We quickly hopped into a rental car and headed eastward toward the sea. Our two stops were at the very small post office of Otter Creek, Maine, where we had the Sea Otter stamps canceled and shortly thereafter at Seal Harbor, Maine where the sea lion envelopes received their Seal Harbor, Maine cancels with killer bars.

Each of our three units completed their goals just before closing time at the respective post offices. It was very close for all of us, but everyone was ecstatic that our missions were accomplished. The snippets from this first day cover odyssey barely touch the surface of how this mini-set came into being. For an interesting in-depth look at this involved saga, you might like to read the story from my book on pages 82 and 83. It truly was A Whale of a Day