Steve Levine
P.O. Box 951
Linden Hill Station
Flushing, NY 11354
Phone: 718-939-5788
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Steve Levine |
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HOW TO PLACE AN ORDER:
Best Regards,
1. ONLINE (BEST METHOD)
Items for sale on this page contain links to a page on my website,
www.stevelevinestamps-plus.com. That page has brief descriptions of these items, and is connected to my SHOPPING CART which can accept online payments by PAY PAL or CREDIT CARD (VISA, MASTER
CARD. or AMERICAN EXPRESS)....or you can PLACE the order, and indicate that you
will be mailing a check.
2. DINOSAUR STYLE (MAIL)
If ordering Dinosaur Style, you
can print out this sheet, then circle the price of what you want and mail it in
with your payment (a check or money order). This is NOT recommended; SOME of
the items I sell ON THIS MONTHLY LIST are in short supply, and while your order is moving slowly thru
the mail, someone else may be grabbing what you want thru direct purchase on my
website.
3. PHONE
IF your order is relatively simple or if you have a few questions, you can
phone me at 718-939-5788.
For me, "business hours" are flexible. I'm usually in, and if I'm not, you get the answering machine. Leave your Phone#; I'll get back to you.
I NO LONGER ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS OVER THE PHONE, but I can set up a special "lot" for you on my website and you can enter your CC Information on my shopping cart.
TERMS OF PURCHASE:
Items from this offering may be
combined with items from other offerings on my
website for a
MINIMUM ORDER
of $15. In order to give you the buying
experience and security you deserve, I ship ALL ORDERS as First Class
Packages, with TRACKING and INSURANCE included FREE.
U.S. orders will cost $3 for
shipping. There's no "handling" fee; just actual
postage expenses. For "Special Situations" -- very large orders or orders
which include items which can't be replaced -- REGISTERED MAIL is
recommended.
Overseas shipments will cost somewhere between
$11 and $14...for STAMPS, CUT SQUARES, and CINDERLLA items (Seals, Labels,
Poster Stamps). Heavier items (Postal Cards, Envelopes, First Day Covers,
Souvenir Cards) may require a surcharge,
depending on just how heavy the shipment is.
ONLY New York State
Residents will be billed the appropriate Sales Tax by my website "Shopping
Cart". At this time, I'm not required to collect Sales Taxes on orders
from any other State.
SATISFACTION IS GUARANTEED ON
ALL ORDERS
Dear Friends & Collectors,
This month, before we get down to business, a
story... and a lesson for us all.
Sometime in February, my computer began to "mis-behave".
Little glitches finally evolved into the "blue screen of death". A
string of messages and error codes told me that I had over 500 "corrupt
sectors" on my hard drive. Annoying, but not too surprising, since
this is my 6th computer, and it's a shade over 5 years old. I seem to
get about 5 years per computer.
And yet, it
wasn't completely dead, only the hard drive. I should have
taken it to the repair shop immediately... but business was strong (thank
you all!), and there were orders to fill, packages to mail, and new material
to check out. So, I rolled the dice and kept on working ...for about 2
weeks. Then it died.
I brought it in,
and received a brief -- and well deserved -- lecture about how I should have
brought it in at the first sign of trouble.
As it turned out my hard drive was shot. They ordered a new one, and
then spent several more days trying to salvage as much data as they could
from the dead one. Meanwhile, they lent me a computer, so I could get
some work done.
AT THIS POINT, My External
Backup Hard Drive couldn't have picked a worse time to defunct... and when I
finally picked up my computer, it was missing some data... which I was unable to
backup. This included a few wantlists and quite a few e-mails.
So.... if you sent me a wantlist or otherwise important email recently,
please RE-send.
The lesson, FOR US
ALL, is obvious. Don't put off fixing problems. If something
goes wrong, fix it, ASAP. I'll try to remember that for the next
time...
CARDZ!
This month, my posting
will highlight some very specialized areas of U.S. Postal Cards. They are:
1. The General Electric Ads on the back of UX47... only these are
on the backs of UX38s.
2. Some varieties of the Postal Buddy
Cards. Besides the basic varieties listed by Scott, there are DOZENS
of varieties of these short-lived cards.
3. FOR NOW,
surcharge varieties of the Press-Printed UX41 and UX42.
Once gain I
thank, posthumously, Bradley Borton for being the gung-ho hoarder that he
was, as well as Darrell Yeisley for being in the
right place at the right time and choosing to build a dealer stock of these
Postal Buddy issues.
THE UX38 GENERAL ELECTRIC ADS
We all know
the backstory about how the General Electric Corporation found themselves sitting on
about one million UX38 cards which had been printed for a promotion they
were running when the postage rate was unexpectedly increased from 2c to 3c.
What we also know is that the USPOD agreed to surcharge 750,000 cards.
What we DON'T know is how long General Electric had been running this
program, nor do we know how many of the OTHER 250,000 cards survived.
About 5 months ago I purchased a portion of the collection of Bradley
Horton. It included ONE EACH of 9 different varieties. These were the
first ones I had owned in 40 years of dealing in Postal Stationery. I
listed these on ebay in an auction in December, starting them all out at
$50.00. They all sold, with prices running the gamut from $61 to $122.
It seems that some of these are scarcer than others.
I figured that was the end of it, but I was wrong. In January, I hit
another auction, and, as I should have guessed, Horton had a "stock" of
these, as well as a "collection". Not much more to
say... here they are.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THESE LISTINGS ON MY WEBSITE
SPECIALIZED POSTAL BUDDY VARIETIES
In addition to the "standard" Postal Buddy varieties with which we are all
familiar (1,2,3,3a,4,4a) there are quite a few specialized varieties that
most of us have never seen. The Postal Buddy machines gave the buyer
the option of printing a number of designs and messages on the cards, such
as the one at the left.
The main reason that
these varieties have been neglected is the mistaken belief that these cares
are UNUSED, and not MINT.
A card is considered
MINT when it's in the same condition in which it left the Post Office.
It's considered UNUSED when some kind of PRINTING has been applied AFTER it
left the Post Office.
The Postal Buddy Kiosks which printed these
cards were considered "extensions" of the Post Office. The printing was applied
when the cards were IN the machine, and BY the machine.
I'm offering, this month quite a few of the #3 and #4 varieties. #1 and #2
varieties wil follow, SOMETIME in the future.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THESE LISTINGS ON MY WEBSITE
SPECIALIZED
1952 RE-VALUES
In 1952, the USPS increased the rate for the 1c Postal Card to 2c after 38 years
of 1c usage. They had a gazillion 1c cards on hand, and rather than
add 1c stamps, they decided to do a re-value printing, HOPING FOR BETTER
RESULTS than they had the last time they did this in 1920!
Single cards of UX27, UX28, and UY7 were re-valued by tickometer and became
UX39, UX40 and UY14... while sheets of these issues became UX41, UX42 and
UY15.
The UX39 (and UY14) cards
are famous (or infamous) for the many different positions of the surcharge
and the multiple surcharges. It's not easy to state, with authority,
which issues are "legitimate" varieties and which are "favor" items, and
there are many opinions. The UPSS rejects quite a few items which
could be legitimate...although they could also be "not-so-legit". Of
course, the most visually striking issues are the ones most likely to be
favor items.
For whatever reason (I
wasn't there; I'm not THAT old!) the UX40s lack the wide variey of surcharge
positions found on UX39.
The UX41 and UX42
issues present a different situation. There are far fewer POSITIONAL
varieties... but the surcharges exist in 4 types, with the UX42 having a 5th
tye which the UX41s don;t have. AND, the UX42 cards exist with 2
different major "Head Types".
The UY15s are
fairly easy to work with... just scarce.
I've tried to spell
out as much of this as I can in my listings, and the UPSS Postal Card
Catalog can take care of the rest.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THESE LISTINGS ON MY WEBSITE
WHAT'S IN THE FUTURE?
Most of what I mentioned
last time is still here, as I was only able to get moving on a bit of it due
to my computer problem 2 months ago.
New
material in future auctions will include some grotesque varieties of the 1920s surcharges.
The FAR FUTURE?
I've received some "strong suggestions" from less advanced
stationery collectors that my listings are a bit hard to follow, and I have
to agree. I'll be breaking some of my listings out of their order and
placing them in separate categories. I've started already with the
1952 Re-Values, though I have quite a bit more to do.
SOMEWHERE along the line, in the not-too-distant future, I have to leave
town. One reason is that while my Apartment has increased nicely in
value over the years, it hasn't increased in square footage. It's just
too small. I need more shelf space, and more table-top space on which
to work.
A lot of material has been popping up
lately, and I want to grab as much of it while I can and worry about working
on it later. This is now impossible; I've reached my limit.
Maybe next time I'll send you some pictures.
There's another reason, not yet fully resolved, which compels me to find a
somewhat-less-densely-populated neighborhood to live in. One with
smaller lines at the P.O., bank, shopping places, etc.. One a bit
closer to my favorite auction house. A no-gas, all-electric,
solar-paneled home which ISN'T within a mile of one of the nation's businest
airorts, and where I won't be awakened at 5 AM by the sirens of fire trucks
or paramedic Ambulances running to the nearest hospital.
I'll tell you about that next time.
Steve
Levine
P.O. Box 951
Linden Hill Station
Flushing, NY 11354
Phone: 718-939-5788
email:steve@stevelevinestamps.com
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