Modern first-day cover centennial celebration set for Sept. 1

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

In an earlier Philatelic Foreword column, I wrote about an event on Aug. 10 at the Great American Stamp Show in Cleveland, Ohio, connected to the 100th anniversary of the first cacheted first-day cover, which was created by Linn’s Stamp News founder George W. Linn.

In that column, I alluded to another event on the actual anniversary date, Sept. 1. Details are still being worked out, but there are a few items that I can share here for planning purposes.

First, to set the scene, at around 9 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1923, Linn walked into the Marion, Ohio, post office with his cacheted FDCs in hand. That post office building is now the museum of the Marion County Historical Society, which is graciously allowing us to mark the anniversary on the steps outside the entrance. 

The brief ceremony is set to take place at 9 a.m., and participants will include me, representatives from the Marion County Historical Society and the United States Postal Service, and potentially more.

The pictorial postmark shown here has been approved for use in Marion on Sept. 1, and information on how to obtain the postmark will be published in future issues of Linn’s and the Postal Service’s Postal Bulletin.

The simple postmark design mimics the look of the 1973 postmark used in Marion for the 50th anniversary.

A ceremony program will be produced for the event, and a postcard marking the anniversary is also planned.

So if there are FDC collectors in the Marion area or looking to travel to Ohio, make plans now to be part of this historic occasion.

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