B1501s

Great Americans

Chester  Carlson - Physicist, Inventor, and Patent Attorney

Fred Collins Signature

Collins Cover Announcement 

CHESTER CARLSON

Famous American Series

This FDC features one of the most unusual stamp and cancel positionings that I have ever used. Two of the 21-cent stamps are used on the cover. From the upper-left hand corner, a chute-like area descends at an angle toward the center of the envelope. One of the stamps is in the chute and the other has reached its destination which is atop a "pile" of the new issue stamps. The effect is that of a huge stack of copies of the new stamp and is intended to illustrate the duplicating process so important to Chester Carlson's life. It was he who was a pioneer in the development of process copying and invented the Xerox method of duplicating documents.

The "pile" of stamps stacked up in the center of the envelope acts as a border between a two-part hand-painted cachet. To the right, two office workers in a modern setting work with the familiar "copying machine" that has become so indespensible in today's business and educational environments. To the left of the column of stamps is an example of the earliest form of duplicating. A Middle Ages monk sits in his stone-walled room and hand copies a manuscrit by candlelight. Before mechanical means were available, all documents could be distributed and multiplied only by the laborious use of the pen.

This stamp was issued in Rochester, N.Y. which is in the northwest part of the state. After picking them up on the morning of the First Day, it was a flight south to the Orange County village of Chester. It was here that the stamps received a true First Day postmark on actual issue date.

Chester Carlson -- a man who has touched the lives of almost every living American and, indeed, individuals in all of the world's developed countries. Everyone who has used a copy machine. This COLLINS has to be the best FDC for the issue. The Chester, New York postmark -- a COLLINS exclusive. The "entire" hand-painted cachet contrasting the modern and ancient duplicating techniques. And, most uniquely, the unusual stamp configuration that gives the visual impression of a large stack of "copies" of the new stamp. Item #B1501 - $8.25