Rare 1920 2¢-on-2¢ revalued envelope error comes to light after vanishing for five decades

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Linn's Weekly에서.
Rare 1920 2¢-on-2¢ reval‎ued envelope error comes to light after vanishing for five decades .
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By Rob Haeseler
A United States stamped envelope error that vanished 47 years ago has resurfaced and been given full recognition in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers and by expertizers.
The rediscovered envelope is one of the most valuable pieces of United States postal stationery — perhaps worth as much as $100,000, because it is unique.
The 1920 2¢-on-2¢ circular die reval‎ued envelope is illustrated below.
Sometimes the rediscovery of a rarity has more profound implications than the original find. In delving into the past, Linn’s learned that the one-of-a-kind error has been known at least since 1930, when it was listed by dealer J. Murray Bartels (1872-1944).
At some point it became part of the collection of Louis H. Barkhausen (1878-1962). Its rarity was acknowledged by postal stationery specialists, but because the envelope was not listed by Scott, it failed to achieve proper recognition. Rubber stamped on the back of the envelope in the upper-left corner is the distinctive football-shaped mark that Barkhausen used for items in his collection.
A self-made shipbuilding millionaire and Chicago real estate tycoon, Barkhausen was the foremost collector of United States postal stationery during the first half of the 20 th century.
He donated his reference material to the Philatelic Foundation in New York City and consigned his large envelope collection to H.R. Harmer to auction in three sales in 1955 and 1956.
Barkhausen’s holding served as one of the principal sources for the Thorp-Bartels Catalogue of the Stamped Envelopes and Wrappers of the United States, published in 1954.
The catalog was the lifetime achievement of Bartels’ heir-apparent, postal stationery dealer Prescott Thorp (1897-1981). Thorp listed the envelope as No. 3349D, type 4, 2¢ surcharge on 2¢ carmine circular die envelope, size 7, oriental buff, knife 51, watermark 22. The value was stated as $75.
Size 7 approximates today’s No. 10 business envelope. Oriental buff is the term that postal stationery collectors use to describe salmoncolored envelope paper.
The knife was the sharp die-cutting tool used to cut envelope blanks before they were embossed, gummed and folded. The knife defined the shape and size of the envelope.
Watermark 22 was used for government stamped envelopes manufactured in 1919.
What makes the error envelope unique is a combination of its paper color and its 2¢ surcharge.
The surcharge, or reval‎uing overprint, was applied in error to a 2¢ carmine envelope stamp when it should have been applied only to a 3¢ violet envelope stamp of that era.
Linn’s learned that the error envelope was next listed as lot No. 183 in the Harmer auction catalog for the Barkhausen sale of Oct. 23, 1956: "Type 4 surch. on 2¢ carmine Die H on buff. Not listed by Scott. Rare and very fine."
However, the envelope was apparently not sold at the auction. The prices realized for the sale note that lot No. 183 was withdrawn. No explanation was given.
At that point the envelope dropped from view.
It did not resurface until 2000, when Massachusetts stamp dealer Richard A. Champagne said he purchased it at a stamp show.
Champagne submitted the envelope to two postal stationery specialists who authenticated it without connecting it to the envelope from the 1954 Thorp catalog and the Barkhausen sale. Champagne submitted the letters of authentication to Scott editors, who listed the envelope in the 2003 specialized catalog as U466C, a major number, but the catalog did not assign a value.
On April 23, 2003, the Philatelic Foundation issued certificate No. 381,130, pronouncing the envelope genuine.
The envelope is tentatively scheduled to be listed as No. 2943A in the next edition of the Catalog of the 20 th Century Stamped Envelopes and Wrappers of the United States, which is published by the United Postal Stationery Society.
"I haven’t put a price on it," Champagne said in an interview with Linn’s when asked the value. "I wish there was a way to price unique material."
The record for a United States 20 th-century postal stationery rarity was set Oct. 19, 2002, when a cut square was auctioned for $45,000 plus a 10 percent buyer’s premium by Shreves Philatelic Galleries in New York City.
It was another 2¢-on-2¢ carmine circular die reval‎ued error, Scott U447A, of which as few as three cut squares are known. It is shown on page 1.
During the past decade, the previous record holder was a 1932 2¢ carmine Bicentennial envelope printed on blue paper instead of white, U525b, valued at $27,500 in the Scott U.S. specialized catalog. A handful surfaced at a stamp show many years ago, where Thorp bought them.
The reval‎ued envelopes of 1920 have long been controversial.
Listings of some of them were stricken from postal stationery catalogs in the 1930s on grounds that they were created by postal workers as favors for collectors. Many of the 1920 reval‎ues don’t even exist in used condition, further casting doubt on their legitimacy.
And yet they have been accepted by collectors and catalogers. Today, no respectable collection is without them, despite their sometimes checkered past. Some that were tossed out of catalogs seven decades ago are gaining new recognition as the reasons for excluding them have been lost in the mists of time, or if known, seem no longer relevant.
Like the rare U447A cut square, Champagne’s envelope is one that should never have been created in the first place, since a 2¢ envelope that is reval‎ued to 2¢ can only be a mistake.
The problem came about because of World War I.
The first-class domestic letter rate, which had been 2¢ since 1883, was raised to 3¢ on Nov. 2, 1917, as a wartime emergency measure.
On July 1, 1919, nearly eight months after the armistice, the first-class letter rate was lowered again to 2¢. But in the meantime, millions of 3¢ violet government stamped envelopes had been printed, stocked in post offices and sold to the public. The 3¢ envelopes now overpaid the basic rate by 1¢, or 50 percent. Something had to be done.
The U.S. Post Office Department decided to overprint the 3¢ envelopes with a new value of 2¢ and to compensate their owners for the difference in value.
Six different types of "2" slugs were created for electric canceling machines, into which the envelopes were fed and reval‎ued at a high rate of speed. A seventh "2" surcharge type was applied with a rubber handstamp.
"The public was permitted to bring envelopes to the post office, in not less than full box lots, for reval‎uing with the new rate, and was reimbursed for the reduction in value by refunds in adhesive stamps," Thorp wrote in his 1954 catalog. ". . . The reval‎uing was done at central post offices only and the slugs used differ slightly for each issuing post office. The slugs were transferred at intervals to other post offices so that the same slug in some cases was used at several different places."
The type 4 surcharge was used in 30 cities. Each city type is slightly different. Envelope specialists who examined Champagne’s entire believe it was surcharged in New Orleans. In printing the new value on the buff envelope, an irregularity obviously occurred. Had it been a normal reval‎ued envelope, it almost certainly would be known in box-lot quantities of 250, which is the way the business-size envelopes were issued and later grouped for reval‎uing. With some of the rarer reval‎ues, it is believed that collectors salted unauthorized envelopes into boxes full of other envelopes, trusting they would not be spotted, and they weren’t. Thus, instant rarities were created.
In an article published by Thorp in the April 1950 issue of Envelope World, his house organ, he said that between 63 million and 169 million 3¢ envelopes were reval‎ued downward in 1920.
"The catalogs record what happened," he went on. "Every possible stock of envelope was dragged out of its dusty storage bin and subjected to the re-valuing process. Buff and blue papers that had long been unavailable made their appearance with surcharges. There was a veritable flood of envelopes — and collectors had a field day.
Also the manipulators did likewise and many strange hybrids turned up. Some to get under the bars and into the catalogs and some to be stopped. To call a halt, the catalogers after a few years called an arbitrary halt to new listings. They simply said ‘no more will be listed!’ That stopped the manipulators and was probably a good thing for stamp collecting. But quite possibly it barred from catalog recognition some few envelopes that were ‘pure.’ It was the old story. The good must suffer with the bad."
The rare Barkhausen envelope found by Champagne could well be one of the good that suffered — until now.
Later, when another rate change in 1925 required a second reval‎uing of envelopes from 1¢ and 2¢ to 1½¢, envelopes manufactured in the 1880s and 1890s found their way through the process. Collectors were much more prepared in 1925 to take advantage of the system than they had been in 1920. At the same time, the authorities were better prepared to stop abuses, but many got through and are recognized in the catalogs.
Champagne believes his error envelope came to him by way of the immense postal stationery hoard of Marcus W. White (1877-1970).
White was the most knowledgeable collector of United States postal stationery through the 1960s, and he served as one of Thorp’s principal advisors.
His zeal to accumulate envelopes was documented in a story, "Salvaged postal card a symbol of obsession," that appeared in Linn’s issue of June 16, 2003, page 22.
White acquired far more stationery than he could ever find time to study. It filled his house in Worcester, Mass., where he had been purchasing agent for the Norton Co., manufacturer of stoneware and industrial abrasives.
Envelopes that White had studied and classified were housed in large black binders. The rest filled drawers that were stacked everywhere — on the stairs and even in fireplaces. It would not have been unusual for White to own material acquired directly from Barkhausen or purchased at the Barkhausen auctions.
White’s own collection was dispersed by private sale and over the auction block in 1970 and 1971.
"I believe it came out of one of Marcus White’s box lots," Champagne said of his error envelope. "He kept hundreds of drawers with stocks of everything. You never knew what you’d see in one of his drawers, which contained material he didn’t have time to put in the large black books."
White’s estate was split between dealers Robert A. Siegel and Stanley Richmond.
Part of the immense holding was then resold to dealer Joseph Landrey in Auburndale, Mass.
It was there that Champagne said he pored over the endless contents of the White envelope drawers in the 1970s, learning about postal stationery.
"I believe discoveries are still to be made from what was in those drawers," he said.
This cut square of the United States 1920 2¢- on-2¢ reval‎ued envelope error realized $45,000 plus 10 percent at auction in New York Oct. 19, 2002, setting a new price record for 20 th-century U.S. postal stationery.
After disappearing in 1956, a unique United States stamped envelope error from 1920 has surfaced and been given catalog recognition. The rare envelope was rediscovered in 2000.