19th- and 20th-century ad covers can be clever and attractive

U.S. Stamp Notes by John M. Hotchner

Pick a subject, any subject, and you will find it on an advertising cover and/or on the back of a United States penny postal card from the late 1870s to the 1950s.

This was the period when low postage costs and available space on mailed envelopes and postal cards, together with rapid reliable delivery, made ads on these platforms attractive to companies offering their wares to prospective customers.

If a company could make their message bold and interesting, it was guaranteed to be read by the recipient. I always enjoy poking though boxes of covers on dealers’ tables at stamp shows. At a recent show in Florida, my search produced the first two items shown here.

The words “HOOPER’S FATAL FOOD,” which titles the cover shown front and back in Figure 1, is an arresting phrase for any recipient to read on their mail.

Only when you proceed to the second line underneath do you realize that “red and black roaches” are the intended target of Hooper’s deadly offerings. This cover is dated October 1915 from New York City.

“War Declared on Rats!” proclaims the 1949 penny postal card postmarked Oct. 8, 1949, and addressed to “HOUSEHOLDER 932A HICKORY ST CITY,” shown front and back in Figure 2. The card was mailed in West Bend, Wis.

   Finally, one of my fun thematic collecting sidelines involves the subject of lawn mowers. Thematic collections go beyond the design content of stamps to include material from all related fields and all types of philatelic material such as meters, essays and proofs, booklets and coils, postal stationery, and, of course, ad covers.

So please enjoy one of my favorite lawn mower covers, shown in Figure 3. There is no specific date shown in the lovely blue geometric cancel, but the cover probably dates to the 1870s and advertises the products of the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine Company of Chicago, Ill. Dated in May, the cover speaks to the arrival of spring and recovery of the ground from winter.

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