L1901s

America the Beautiful

Niagara Falls

Fred Collins Signature

Collins Cover Announcement 

NIAGARA FALLS 

America the Beautiful Series

We decided to make this First Day of Issue the focal point of a family outing. Linda and I along with our three youngest children drove to the beautiful upstate region of New York on August 20th. Our first stop that afternoon was Howe's Caverns and Mandy, Ryan and Christy enjoyed their subterranean hike plus an underground boat ride. That evening we pulled into our motel in Niagara Falls.

Rain greeted us the next morning and a parade of umbrellas entered the post office. There were a fair number of collectors busy with the postcard and I joined them to bring a new COLLINS into existence. I decided that the locally used magenta Niagara Falls dater postmark was great for this issue and, of course, it was only available to those actually there. Soon I finished and, as always, felt good when the new covers were successfully canceled. The five of us spent a rainy afternoon split between the American and Canadian Falls. Inclement weather did not diminish the impact of all of that water tumbling over the massive falls. Quite a sight.

For my hand-painted cachet, I captured the magnitude of the thundering falls and my scene complements that of the stamp very nicely. To give the scene perspective, four mallard ducks fly across my cachet in the foreground. It's an interesting collectible and captures the essence of one of our best know natural wonders -- Niagara Falls. Item #L1901. $8.25.