Hank was in my dreams the other night. Why would I dream about him now? Ten years ago we were inseparable. We studied physics, debated philosophical concepts, played on the football team, devoured the same food, then, after college, drifted apart. Before we pursued our own careers, nothing held us together more than our love of stamps. We were especially enamored with stamp booklets. Perhaps it’s my new interest in them that wakens him from my subconscious mind.

Back then I was only interested in booklets that contained valid postage stamps. Hank collected anything that resembled a stamp booklet.

His favorites were stamp booklets that were issued in the 1870’s. They did not contain postage stamps. They were not sold by the Post Office. They were not issued by any Federal Department or any other government agency. The Scott Specialized Catalogue of U. S. Stamps and Covers didn’t list them until 1935.  Even though they existed long before the Post Office issued booklets, and are respectable philatelic units, they are not recognized as the first stamp booklets. They were telegraph stamp booklets. They were issued by private companies. Could they even be called stamps? Were they worthy of listing in any stamp catalogue?

stamp-booklet-us-1942Telegraph stamp booklet containing panes of Scott 15TO29 and 15TO30 issued in 1942. The stamps were used by telegraph employees in the Armed Forces for use in the United States. This is not a trivial collectible. The panes in this booklet are valued by 2005 Scott at $535.00.

Scott didn’t think so until 65 years after they were issued. The 2003 Krause – Minkus and 2005 Brookman catalogues do not list them. Generally speaking stamp collectors rely on catalogues to tell them what collectibles exist. If they aren’t found in any catalogue, they aren’t usually known, albums aren’t made for them, and hence, not collected.

It is now 2005. Looking back at the 1984 Scott United States stamp catalogue, (Scott has changed the name of the U. S. Specialized Catalogue several times in the past) air letter sheets from private airlines such as Western, Burlington, and P.R.I.D.E. airlines, were pictured and valued. Special albums were printed for them. They are no longer listed in Scott and haven’t been for many years. When Scott listed these air letter sheets their value was known and many philatelists collected them. Since Scott doesn’t include them in their catalogue anymore have they become non-collectibles? I don’t think so.

The United States Stamp Society (USSP) calls the items issued by telegraph companies stamps. So does Scott. Since the stamps were issued in booklet form, and since they were issued in 1870 they were the first stamp booklets issued in the United States. The booklet issued by the Federal Government in 1900 was the first postage stamp booklet. There are two “firsts” in U. S. booklet history, the one that was issued by the Post Office and was valid for postal use by everyone and the other booklet issued in 1870 by the California State Telegraph Company which was used only by the company.

Now that telegraph stamps and booklets are listed in the Scott catalogue don’t they achieve a status equivalent to booklets issued for postal purposes?

Another factor to be considered is market value. It would be easy to dismiss the telegraph stamp booklet as simply an interesting collectible if the market value was only a few dollars. That is not the case. The first telegraph stamp booklet pane is valued at $2,900 by Scott. The first postage stamp booklet pane is valued at $825.

The $2,900 valuation of the first telegraph booklet is more significant than you might think. Postage stamp booklet panes were printed in sheets with multiple panes. Some of the printing plates contained a number that would appear on only one of the many booklet panes on the sheet. The sheets were cut apart to make several booklets. One booklet pane of 6, Scott 300b, with the plate number, is valued at $4,000 by the 2005 Scott—without the plate number its value is $2,250. All other postage booklet panes of 6 are valued at less than $2,900; the value of the first telegraph booklet. There is a booklet pane, Scott 499f, valued at $38,000, but it is a pane of 30 and was used only by the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. Thus, the first telegraph booklet has a higher retail value than all but two of the hundreds of U. S. booklet panes and their varieties listed in the BOOKLETS: PANES & COVERS section of the 2005 Scott U. S. Specialized Catalogue.

Whenever I have seen attribution to the first stamp booklet, the listing has referred only to postage booklets or booklet panes. I think it is time that these lists announce two firsts. They should refer to, and distinguish between, telegraph stamp booklets (privately issued) and postage stamp booklets (government issued). They should also acknowledge that in the printing of booklets and booklet panes, private industry was 30 years ahead of the United States Post Office.

First published in U. S. Stamp News, October 2005.