Inside Linn’s: Researching a U.S. 1947 ‘insufficiently prepaid’ airmail cover

By Charles Snee

The Dec. 9 issue of Linn’s Stamp News just landed on the presses and goes in the mail to subscribers Monday, Nov. 25. And if you subscribe to Linn’s digital edition, you’re at the head of the line with early access Saturday, Nov. 23. Here we entice you with three snapshots of exclusive content available only to subscribers. 

Shortpaid 1947 airmail letter is ‘insufficiently prepaid’

Tony Wawrukiewicz, in Modern U.S. Mail, combs through issues of the Postal Bulletin to discover why an airmail cover mailed in 1947 from a military base in Hawaii to the Soviet occupation zone in Germany was shortpaid by 2¢. In this case, the cover required 7¢ postage for “minimal full international service.”

Revenue stamps fight trafficking of Christmas trees

For 14 years, 1935-48, Minnesota issued evergreen tree tag stamps to combat the illegal trafficking of Christmas trees in the state. In the Odd Lot column, Wayne L. Youngblood takes a closer look at these innovative revenue stamps that raised more than $180,000 for enforcement of the 1935 Christmas tree law. These cardboard tags are listed in the State Revenue Catalog as CT1-CT27.

Kitchen Table Philately: mixture receives a grade of B+

In each weekly issue of Linn’s, either E. Rawolik VI or E. Rawolik VII dissects the contents of a stamp mixture offered to collectors. E. Rawolik is a pseudonym that is also the word “kiloware” (a stamp mixture) spelled backward. This week, E. Rawolik VII sifts through an “unpicked mix of older and newer” stamps from a dealer in Vermont. Rawolik’s overall grade for the assortment is a B+.

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