Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Bob Ingraham sent me a private message inquiring about my father's Viet Nam service and the covers I mentioned in the nationality thread. I found that I couldn't send photos in this boards PM system (or at least I couldn't figure it out) so here they are for everyone to see.
Often when I mention that my father was in Viet Nam in 1962, people try to correct me that I must have the year wrong. But no, you can see the post mark proof in the scan above. He was part of Advisor Team 75, and I know he was in the Signal Corp back then and was working on a communications system. He spoke of Viet Nam very little, so I really know nothing more, and unfortunately he has passed on, so I cannot ask.
Most of the covers I have, all of which have family correspondence in them, have the same generic APO postmark, so they all are unremarkably the same. I chose these two since the return address varies, one with his unit, and the second one when he was in the hospital with hepatitis, that he contracted there.
Value wise, I have no idea if these covers are valuable, other than for the history they document. The APO postmark is generic, no doubt applied at some main collection point, the history would be in the return address, and the history of the team and APO number.
I can credit my grandmother the saver that these covers exist today. She saved everything, and made sure she handed it down in her later years. I also have a notebook containing car drawings I did when I was 10 years old, which I consider priceless, but I wouldn't inflict on the board here!
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Tom, I can't put a price on them, but I can chat a bit about their availability, which is very little. Dollar bins are littered with WWII and, to a lesser degree, WWI covers. Some are rarities for unit or place, but most are common.
I neve see VN APOs in dollar bins; either because they are valued higher or because they haven't entered the secondary markets yet or, worse, because they don't exist.
Yours must be very rare, because they document a time when we were barely there, militarily, and the correspondence, even if pablum, makes them even scarcer.
thanks for sharing
David
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David- To make folks groan! The dozen or so I have are the survivors. Back when I was 14 and a stamp collector, my grandmother handed me an envelope with many of the 7 cent airmail stamp on paper... she no doubt clipped them off some of the correspondence. My father was a letter writer and between letters and reel to reel tapes, he pretty much wrote his parents and my mother once a week. The letters are more about family happenings here in the USA, than his adventures in Viet Nam. Which is probably the norm for soldier mail.
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oh, we do groan with our folly
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Wow! I have probably 40 Vietnam War covers, but not a single one from the late "advisory period". In fact, I have never even seen one!
As David said, they are truly rare, at least in the sense that they certainly are hard to find, unlike many rare and expensive stamps, which you can buy at almost time provided you can afford them. Value? Most U.S. Vietnam War covers sell for around U.S. $20 - $40. Covers from Allied forces — Australia and New Zealand, are quite hard to find, and I have never seen a Korean cover.
Vietnam War military covers are becoming more and more available, but that's a recent phenomenon that is no doubt taking place because the veterans who owned them are beginning, like MacArthur, to fade away....
The Advisor's program began in 1950. Here's what Wikipedia says:
"Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962."
The next escalation, resulted from the Tonkin Gulf Incident of 1964.
Bob
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After seeing Tom's covers, I just have to respond. I was also with Advisory Team 75 during the entire year of 1967. I was with the 12th Battalion of the 7th ARVAN Division stationed out of My Tho, South Vietnam.
When I was there we had free franking, so no stamps, but the post mark is basically the same. My wife, bless her heart, saved all the letters from my two tours in VN.
Tom, do you know where your father was stationed while in VN? Advisory teams and numbers may have changed during that period.
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Mel- I'm not sure at all about the history. He never spoke about his time in Viet Nam. I can go digging through the letters and reel to reel tapes to see if he mentions anything about what he was doing. I have the whole family archive of things that have survived. I also have his 2 drawer file cabinet that has his whole military history right through his discharge papers. I can go through this, it may hold some answers.
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I thought about it a minute and remembered I had this piece on my shelf. The plaque reads:
"MAAG-7 Detachment; My Tho, Vietnam; Mar 1962 - Feb 1963; Arthur H Geiger; 1st Lt, SigC"
The base is wood but the bust is hollow metal. It's pretty heavy.
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Tom,
Those audio tapes might be a treasure trove. A few years before he died, my uncle, MSgt. Phil Ingraham, recorded almost two hours of his memories of his service in the South Pacific during the Second World War and sent them to me. I transcribed them and turned them into a web page, The War Stories of MSgt. Phil Ingraham.
Bob
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Bob Ingraham sent me a private message inquiring about my father's Viet Nam service and the covers I mentioned in the nationality thread. I found that I couldn't send photos in this boards PM system (or at least I couldn't figure it out) so here they are for everyone to see.
Often when I mention that my father was in Viet Nam in 1962, people try to correct me that I must have the year wrong. But no, you can see the post mark proof in the scan above. He was part of Advisor Team 75, and I know he was in the Signal Corp back then and was working on a communications system. He spoke of Viet Nam very little, so I really know nothing more, and unfortunately he has passed on, so I cannot ask.
Most of the covers I have, all of which have family correspondence in them, have the same generic APO postmark, so they all are unremarkably the same. I chose these two since the return address varies, one with his unit, and the second one when he was in the hospital with hepatitis, that he contracted there.
Value wise, I have no idea if these covers are valuable, other than for the history they document. The APO postmark is generic, no doubt applied at some main collection point, the history would be in the return address, and the history of the team and APO number.
I can credit my grandmother the saver that these covers exist today. She saved everything, and made sure she handed it down in her later years. I also have a notebook containing car drawings I did when I was 10 years old, which I consider priceless, but I wouldn't inflict on the board here!
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re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
Tom, I can't put a price on them, but I can chat a bit about their availability, which is very little. Dollar bins are littered with WWII and, to a lesser degree, WWI covers. Some are rarities for unit or place, but most are common.
I neve see VN APOs in dollar bins; either because they are valued higher or because they haven't entered the secondary markets yet or, worse, because they don't exist.
Yours must be very rare, because they document a time when we were barely there, militarily, and the correspondence, even if pablum, makes them even scarcer.
thanks for sharing
David
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Approvals
re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
David- To make folks groan! The dozen or so I have are the survivors. Back when I was 14 and a stamp collector, my grandmother handed me an envelope with many of the 7 cent airmail stamp on paper... she no doubt clipped them off some of the correspondence. My father was a letter writer and between letters and reel to reel tapes, he pretty much wrote his parents and my mother once a week. The letters are more about family happenings here in the USA, than his adventures in Viet Nam. Which is probably the norm for soldier mail.
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re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
oh, we do groan with our folly
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re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
Wow! I have probably 40 Vietnam War covers, but not a single one from the late "advisory period". In fact, I have never even seen one!
As David said, they are truly rare, at least in the sense that they certainly are hard to find, unlike many rare and expensive stamps, which you can buy at almost time provided you can afford them. Value? Most U.S. Vietnam War covers sell for around U.S. $20 - $40. Covers from Allied forces — Australia and New Zealand, are quite hard to find, and I have never seen a Korean cover.
Vietnam War military covers are becoming more and more available, but that's a recent phenomenon that is no doubt taking place because the veterans who owned them are beginning, like MacArthur, to fade away....
The Advisor's program began in 1950. Here's what Wikipedia says:
"Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962."
The next escalation, resulted from the Tonkin Gulf Incident of 1964.
Bob
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re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
After seeing Tom's covers, I just have to respond. I was also with Advisory Team 75 during the entire year of 1967. I was with the 12th Battalion of the 7th ARVAN Division stationed out of My Tho, South Vietnam.
When I was there we had free franking, so no stamps, but the post mark is basically the same. My wife, bless her heart, saved all the letters from my two tours in VN.
Tom, do you know where your father was stationed while in VN? Advisory teams and numbers may have changed during that period.
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this post
Approvals
re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
Mel- I'm not sure at all about the history. He never spoke about his time in Viet Nam. I can go digging through the letters and reel to reel tapes to see if he mentions anything about what he was doing. I have the whole family archive of things that have survived. I also have his 2 drawer file cabinet that has his whole military history right through his discharge papers. I can go through this, it may hold some answers.
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
I thought about it a minute and remembered I had this piece on my shelf. The plaque reads:
"MAAG-7 Detachment; My Tho, Vietnam; Mar 1962 - Feb 1963; Arthur H Geiger; 1st Lt, SigC"
The base is wood but the bust is hollow metal. It's pretty heavy.
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this post
re: Viet Nam Advisor Covers
Tom,
Those audio tapes might be a treasure trove. A few years before he died, my uncle, MSgt. Phil Ingraham, recorded almost two hours of his memories of his service in the South Pacific during the Second World War and sent them to me. I transcribed them and turned them into a web page, The War Stories of MSgt. Phil Ingraham.
Bob
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