F2602

Prehistoric Animals

Woolly Mammoth

Collins Cover Announcement 

PREHISTORIC ANIMALS

Woolly Mammoth

This is the final COLLINS FDC for the four stamp Prehistoric Animal block. I really enjoyed producing this set of hand-painted cachets, and I know in the months and years ahead collectors who have them in their holdings will, indeed, be happy. I expect them to be very sought after items.

Mammoths are relatives of today's African and Indian elephants. Both are classified as members of the order Proboscidea. Adult mammoths stood about 12 feet high at the shoulder and weighed up to eight tons. Daily they needed forty gallons of water and six hundred pounds of vegetation to eat. They had a very thick coat to protect against the harsh winters and individual body hairs could be as long as three feet. The long, curved tusks reached lengths of up to nine feet and were used for protection and foraging for food.

SCIENCE Mammoth Experiment

ONE MIGHT THINK KAZUFUmi Goto had been sniffing little too much formaldehyde. But the Japanese animal physiologist recently announced his plan to bring a prehistoric pachyderm back into existence: the woolly mammoth. Goto wants to take mammoth sperm cells frozen in the Siberian tundra, use them to fertilize the egg of an Indian elephant and repeat for generations. The final scene: a mostly mammoth pachyderm. To get started, Goto last month led a team of researchers to Siberia, where they planned an excavation of frozen mammoths for next July. The good news: in the last 300 years, many mammoth carcasses have been found— some in remarkably good shape. And in 1990 Goto used dead cow sperm to fertilize a live egg, and got a perfectly normal calf. The downside: hybrid creatures, like mules, are usually infertile. And repeatedly using sperm from the same mammoth could produce the same effect as any other inbreeding: really strange offspring.

LUCY HOWARD. CARLA KOEHL and SAM BALTRUSIS

NEWSWEEK SEPTEMBER 16, 1996

Cave paintings by early man have accurately depicted the woolly mammoth. It was widely believed that they became extinct 10,000 years ago and this is probably true for all of the major land areas. Scientists have made a startling discovery (verified by carbon testing) that they thrived on a large, remote island between Russia and Alaska as recently as 4,000 years ago. Even more amazing is that a Japanese animal psychologist hopes to bring them back from extinction. My hand-painted cachet features five of the large beasts at a primal watering hole. This, like the others in my set, is a very eye-catching cachet. Only a very limited supply of the first three covers remains in stock should you wish to add any to your collection: Eohippus (F2601); Mastodon (F2603); and, Saber-Tooth Cat (F2604). They are $11.75 each and are destined to become hobby gems.

For now, I close out this prehistoric COLLINS set with the offering of my Woolly Mammoth cachet. Item #F2602. $11.75.

Summer 2024 Mail Sale Commentary 

Lot 24 F2601, F2602, F2603, F2604 — Prehistoric Animals (set of 4 covers) — 6-8-96

The four stamps for the Prehistoric Animals mini-series are interesting and unique. Eohippuses (F2601) were the ancestors of today's horses, but they were much smaller — about the size of a fox. It took that prehistoric animal about 50 million years to grow into the large horses we know today. They lived in North America and Europe and had eyes in the middle of their skulls. The Wooly Mammoths (F2602) roamed the Northern Hemisphere for at least a half a million years. They were ancient elephants and grazed on plants. They gave birth to one calf at a time. Females and young roamed in herds of about 15 individuals. Wooly mammoths weighed between 5 to 13 tons each, and they were extinct as of 4,000 years ago. Mastodons (F2603) were also enormous and weighed as much as 6 tons. They had low-domed heads with prominent upper tusks. They were related to but not the same as wooly mammoths. Their extinction was complete about 10,000 years ago. Saber Tooth (F2604) cats weighed about 350 to 620 pounds and were the size of today's Siberian tigers. They were ferocious and were able to successfully hunt larger animals such as bison and horses. Saber tooth cats went extinct approximately 10,000 years ago. This is the first time these Prehistoric Animals have appeared in one of my sales.