W1701

Sea Creatures

Sea Mammals

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