Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
NO,WE ARE NOT CUTTING OFF THE STAMPS!
One is from Dec, 1983 and the rest are early 1984, including Lake Placid Olympics, Hawaii Statehood, Orchid series...and more. An explanatory card accompanies each one.
Looking for info from SOR folks about the value and whether the Project would be wise to try to sell them to raise revenue for the various expenses connected with the Project. It will be tough to find a way to display them as they deserve to be shown once the entire collection (of 11 million stamps and 18 stamps collages)finds its eventual home in a public venue connected with ongoing Holocaust Education.
Login to Like
this post
Value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but such "gold replica" stamps and covers, advertised for their value as "investments," have little commercial value. You might sell them for a few dollars, but it's questionable whether the effort would be worthwhile. But let's see what other Stamporama members have to say. They might disagree with me!
I searched eBay for offers of gold replica stamps, and found almost 4,000! Almost none have bids, and most of the bids are for only a couple of dollars or less for single covers. Which says something about the way they aren't being snatched up! But let's see what other members of Stamporama have to say.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
i went on eBay and found one lot of these little guys with a bid: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Golden-Replicas-United-States-stamps-41-covers-22-kt-gold-electroplating-/181531654979?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a44213b43
it is a bid of $4 for 41 covers, or, about a dime each. Others were listed, often as singles, but I found no bidders. I think you've found about what the market will bear with that bid.
My experience is no different; unless a buyer is looking for a specific topic, they generally go begging. Hi initial sale price and virtually no secondary market.
You are right not to cut them up, but you mustn't expect much in the way of returns should you opt to try to sell them.
David
(Modified by Moderator on 2014-09-21 20:53:32)
Login to Like
this post
06:50:35pm
These were heavily marketed, but almost nobody collects them in the secondary market. They are constantly coming out of estates where they were bought originally from the marketing companies (at hideous original prices). We sell a few in BuckaCover, mostly to topical collectors who want to add just that one special item to their topical collection.
here are some in current inventory:
http://www.buckacover.com/covers/search.php?code=usfdcgold
Roy
Login to Like
this post
Thanks Bob, David, and Roy for your quick responses.
I now feel better about the "whole envelopes" getting added into the vast collection of 4,155,987 individual stamps (as of 9/17/14) that we hope to eventually "display" in a UV-protected clear acrylic custom-designed sculpture as the centerpiece of the public display.
Login to Like
this post
The gold replicas might add a nice sparkle to the artwork!
Login to Like
this post
Those will look great in the display ! Maybe I will add some to the growing pile of stamps I am pulling together for the project. Once I get a good box I will send em. Luv this idea
Login to Like
this post
Many thanks, philatelia and jerredut3 (whose being-filled-now box o' stamps will be gratefully accepted!)
Charlotte
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
06:49:22pm
A local appliance store owner, knowing my affection for things postal, asked me about those things, (It must be 15 years ago, before I retired. ) so I used the then nascient internets to research their market value. I printed out two or three eBay offers to show him that they were not worth the postage it would take to ship them. He refused to believe me and finally admitted that he had sold a used stove or refrigerator either for them or with them as deposit to guarantee the buyers returning with payment.
Apparently after several months he suspected he'd never see his "Customer" again. "But" he said "The guy showed me the invoices where he had paid over $400.00. " Which was true as he had the monthly or quarterly invoices, complete with check number and amount.
I sympathized with him and said if he could get more than $5.00 (US currency) he would be lucky.
In one of Herman Hurst's seminal tome on the stamp business in the '30s and '40s he wrote;
"If it is made for a collectable, it is not collectable" a comment that made me gun-shy about purchasing FDCs and other contrived postal souvenirs from dealers or even postal agencies.
So Charlotte, toss them into the Holocaust project or sell them at a flea market table but don't fail to explain to any prospective buyer that their actual collectable value is somewhere just above "Nil".
However they often came in a nice hardwood display case that might be put to use for stamps or medals.
Charlie
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Good story, Charlie! And I believe it. I lost a friendship over "gold" souvenir covers: My friend enthusiastically showed me his "collection," and I tried hard to explain that he'd wasted his money without suggesting that he'd made an unwise purchase. We parted amicably, but he never spoke to me again.
You said, "'If it is made for a collectable, it is not collectable,'a comment that made me gun-shy about purchasing FDCs and other contrived postal souvenirs from dealers or even postal agencies." I don't go that far. I have a few FDCs and other philatelic "emissions" that work nicely in various web pages or exhibits. And some of them are philatelically valuable as far as I'm concerned because they represent almost the only known use of the stamps that frank them, or, I guess I should say are stuck to them! In other cases, they provide historical evidence of events that might be otherwise hard to document philatelically. Here's an example, from my Battle of the Atlantic exhibit; S.S. Quirigua was a United Fruit Company banana boat that was taken over by the U.S. Navy during the Second World War to serve as an armed stores vessel:
Bob
Login to Like
this post
11:04:33am
Yes Bob, perhaps my "Gunshy" comment might be taken too literally. At the time I was just beginning to learn how the stamping business worked and had seen several fellow stampers pursue those dinner plates (Bradford Exchange, I think) that were supposed to be dramatic historical treasures and two collectors who had albums and albums stuffed with FDCs from that company in Wyoming, which they frequently explained were very valuable.
Also that was the era when Joe Granville was advising stamp investment as a foolproof path to wealth.
Over time I have come across several FDCs or prepared cachets that, as you mention illustrate some event such as those Icebreakers that carried supplies to Antarctica every year and the CGC Westwind which brought the supplies to Cape Christian (Baffin Island) and Cape Athol (Thule) the year I wintered over.
I'd replace them in a minute were I to come across a cover that had carried an actual letter from a crew man.
I wasn't thinking of the casual acquisition of covers like that, most of which did travel through the mail and despite the initial contrived circumstances do illustrate a historic event, or something hat demonstrates an event that has some personal significance.
By the way, your note about the civilian crews who backed up the Navy Armed Guard crews during WW II is right. It was technically illegal for them to man the guns, even to serve as ammunition handlers, as that would affect their non-combatant status. However in the Battle for the Atlantic in particular, Merchant Marine seaman often helped and even manned gun mounts since an inoperative naval cannon could mean the difference between life and death.
Have you ever read the story of Edwin J. O'Hara, a Cadet midshipman aboard the Liberty ship SS Stephen Hopkins who despite being injured, escaped from the engine room via the drive shaft passage way to the 4" or 5" gun on the ships stern, then, seeing the gun crew injured and abandoning ship, loaded rounds from the ready box,he aimed the deck gun, first at the German surface raider Stier's bridge, then at her hull as she was lowly circling his vessel. How he managed to get several rounds off that disabled and actually sank the German vessel must have taken super courage. Unfortunately, he died after the Hopkins sank in the lifeboat. Now if I could find a letter from one of the crew, even a FDC commemorating it's launching I'd write a detailed account of that adventure.
The US Merchant Marine Academy is the only one of our military schools that sent Cadets into the war zone during their training. And as a thanks for their service Merchant seamen were given access to some veteran's benefits about forty years after the war, about 1986, after most of them had passed away, a great example of how those veteran's were treated by Congress and an ungrateful nation, once they were no longer needed. During WW II those civilian sailors had a fatality rate about 30% higher than the USMC.
The thing is that those men sailed because they liked sailing, perhaps had no other skills but nautical and accepted the risks, It is another unknown story of quiet bravery.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Hi Everyone;
@ cdj1122;
Thank you for that fascinating story of the sea. I was a deck seaman in 1966-68. I served aboard the USS Arcadia AD23,
a destroyer tender. But it was tied up in port most of the time. That was way too boring, so I transfered to the
USS Valcour AGF1, a spy ship (diplomatic) in the Persian Gulf. We spent more time at sea than in port.
After getting out of the navy I worked on the C&O Train/car/passenger ferry from Ludington Michigan to Milwaukee,
Manotoc, and Keewaunee Wisconsin. Later worked on the Grand Trunk out of Muskegon MI. to Milwaukee Wis.
One memorable trip across the lake, was especially bad. It was winter, the roughest time of year, and halfway across
the lake the captain turned around and ran her back to port at flank speed. The C&O office was very worried,
because a ship had never aborted a voyage before!
Keep on stampin
Ken Tall Pines
Login to Like
this post
04:09:00pm
Haha !
Destroyer Tenders (AD) and Submarine tenders (AS) only go to sea once a year, first to see if the engines still work, second to make sure they still float and third, to free up the propellers from the accumulated coffee grounds and broken clam shells.
Circling around the sea buoy once or twice is usually far enough to qualify for a Sea Service Ribbon.
.
I put almost three years on this cutter. Three five or six month WestPacs and one six month South Pacific cruise, and loved just about every minute.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
I have a cousin who spent most of his career in the Navy on a submarine tender in Scotland. Married a Scottish lass as a bonus. 
Roger
Login to Like
this post
Hi Everyone;
Actually I probably exaggerated the year spent aboard the tender. The first cruise was to New York City, after taking on
artillery shells in Jersey. We were in NY about 4 or 5 days. Then back to Newport RI. our home port.
Newport wasn't too bad, touring an old castle and the Vanderbuilt marble mansion, and got to see the Kennedy Mansion on
the cliff walk.
Then in 1967 the ship sailed to Jacksonville Fla. for a month or so. It was cold and the snow was four inches deep there.
If you are old enough to remember the horrible winter of 1967, when the expressways in Chicago were all giant parking
lots, as thousands of motorists were stranded, for days.
The final cruise on that ship was a full month in San Juan Puerto Rico, in January! When we got back to the states, we
all commented, "why do all these people look dead?" They had lost their tans, but we had spent a whole month in the
tropical sun!
All this happened while my school friends were serving and dying in Viet Nam. 
The part of the 60s I would just as soon forget.
Keep on stampin
Ken Tall Pines
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Charlie, I am jealous, jealous, jealous! I joined the navy in 1962 to see the world as a member of a ship's crew. I served two years at the navy hospital in Yokosuka, Japan (admittedly, I asked for that posting, but in my "dream sheet" (a document that sailors fill out to request their preferred next duty station) I also as second and third choices duty on a destroyer or a cruiser.
After my two years in Japan, I asked for duty on a destroyer, or a cruiser, or an ice breaker, knowing that I was probably headed for the Fleet Marine Force. My next duty station was Field Medical Service School at Camp Pendleton. After graduating, I joined a rifle company in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. In late summer of 1965 we sailed on U.S.S. Magoffin, an attack transport, from Long Beach, California to Okinawa for additional training, then in January embarked on U.S.S. Paul Revere (another attack transport) for the Philippines for additional training and then South Vietnam, where we went ashore in an amphibious landing on January 28, 1966. Here's a cover I posted from Paul Revere:
I did enjoy my brief time on Magoffin and PaulRevere, although the days before landing in Vietnam were, well, just a bit nerve wracking!
I did have a couple of other experiences at sea, both when I was in Yokosuka. I did some research about sea snakes for some navy divers who were headed for Vietnam, and they reciprocated by inviting me aboard the submarine they were attached to, U.S.S. Wahoo (S.S.-565). We left Yokosuka early in the morning, sailed on the surface through Tokyo Bay to the open ocean, and then submerged. I got to see Mount Fuji through the periscope and listen with hydrophones to a ship passing overhead. I remember talking with a submariner who looked like Mr. Clean with a gold earring and had his bunk on top of a live torpedo. Here are three photographs that I took on that cruise:
My one other experience on a navy vessel happened when I was joined the crew of a workboat which headed out into Tokyo Bay to dump obsolete munitions overboard. For several hours, I watched while the crew disposed of hundreds of bombs and mortar shells, which are at the bottom to this day, no doubt rusting and releasing toxins into the ocean environment.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
So you are the one responsible for Godzilla!
Thanks for sharing the tale and the pics!
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
07:27:43am
Oh, yes, Yokuska and the memories when the exchange rate was 360Â¥ to the dollar and we were paid in Military Script. We stopped there several times for R&R while on the afore-pictured Coastie Cutter for a week or to and later on the several merchant ships that put in there or at Yokohama. On one trip I went with a young lady to a small resort where we could see Fuji-san through a window in the morning on days when the clouds cleared away from the crest. The tourists wee all climbing to the summit, but we preferred the towns and the lake.
I still have a 14" bronze replica of the Dai Butusu --The Great Buddha -- on the top of the entertainment center in my living room from a similar weekend at Kamakura. I'd love to be abl to do that once again.
I wish I had the photos I shot in those days.
Login to Like
this post
Just ran across this thread and remembered my photograph of the Buddha at Kamakura:
Bob
Login to Like
this post
Hi Everyone;
I also have a large Budda, that is hand carved from wood. I purchased it in Karachi
Pakistan in 1968. It has amazing detail, even in the hair, and was made from very
well seasoned wood as there are no cracks or checks at all, and is of a nice dark
brown wood with an oily sheen.
I also purchased two large bronzes; a Shiva (my favorite), and I think the other is
Ardhanarishvara. I've always enjoyed collecting Indian stamps and especially the
Indian states, of which there are dozens.
Every time I look at them, I have fond memories of my visit to Pakistan, and also
Madras and Bombay in India. I owe those visits the thanks for introducing me to
Asian spices, Curries and British style Chutneys.
Keep on stampin'
TuskenRaider
Login to Like
this post
02:15:00pm
These posts are extremely interesting, but they do not belong in this thread. I wish I had the capability to move selected posts, but I do not. It means I either have delete off topic posts, or move the entire thread. I am not going to delete anything up to this point, but any further off topic posts will be fair game.
Please get back to the topic (22 kt USA replica first day covers) or open a new thread elsewhere.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
A box of 15 mint condition, 22 kt gold replica first-day-of-issues were dropped off as a donation to the Holocaust Stamps Project.
NO,WE ARE NOT CUTTING OFF THE STAMPS!
One is from Dec, 1983 and the rest are early 1984, including Lake Placid Olympics, Hawaii Statehood, Orchid series...and more. An explanatory card accompanies each one.
Looking for info from SOR folks about the value and whether the Project would be wise to try to sell them to raise revenue for the various expenses connected with the Project. It will be tough to find a way to display them as they deserve to be shown once the entire collection (of 11 million stamps and 18 stamps collages)finds its eventual home in a public venue connected with ongoing Holocaust Education.
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but such "gold replica" stamps and covers, advertised for their value as "investments," have little commercial value. You might sell them for a few dollars, but it's questionable whether the effort would be worthwhile. But let's see what other Stamporama members have to say. They might disagree with me!
I searched eBay for offers of gold replica stamps, and found almost 4,000! Almost none have bids, and most of the bids are for only a couple of dollars or less for single covers. Which says something about the way they aren't being snatched up! But let's see what other members of Stamporama have to say.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
Auctions
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
i went on eBay and found one lot of these little guys with a bid: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Golden-Replicas-United-States-stamps-41-covers-22-kt-gold-electroplating-/181531654979?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a44213b43
it is a bid of $4 for 41 covers, or, about a dime each. Others were listed, often as singles, but I found no bidders. I think you've found about what the market will bear with that bid.
My experience is no different; unless a buyer is looking for a specific topic, they generally go begging. Hi initial sale price and virtually no secondary market.
You are right not to cut them up, but you mustn't expect much in the way of returns should you opt to try to sell them.
David
(Modified by Moderator on 2014-09-21 20:53:32)
Login to Like
this post
BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories
21 Sep 2014
06:50:35pm
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
These were heavily marketed, but almost nobody collects them in the secondary market. They are constantly coming out of estates where they were bought originally from the marketing companies (at hideous original prices). We sell a few in BuckaCover, mostly to topical collectors who want to add just that one special item to their topical collection.
here are some in current inventory:
http://www.buckacover.com/covers/search.php?code=usfdcgold
Roy
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Thanks Bob, David, and Roy for your quick responses.
I now feel better about the "whole envelopes" getting added into the vast collection of 4,155,987 individual stamps (as of 9/17/14) that we hope to eventually "display" in a UV-protected clear acrylic custom-designed sculpture as the centerpiece of the public display.
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
The gold replicas might add a nice sparkle to the artwork!
Login to Like
this post
07:04:27am
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Those will look great in the display ! Maybe I will add some to the growing pile of stamps I am pulling together for the project. Once I get a good box I will send em. Luv this idea
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Many thanks, philatelia and jerredut3 (whose being-filled-now box o' stamps will be gratefully accepted!)
Charlotte
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
23 Sep 2014
06:49:22pm
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
A local appliance store owner, knowing my affection for things postal, asked me about those things, (It must be 15 years ago, before I retired. ) so I used the then nascient internets to research their market value. I printed out two or three eBay offers to show him that they were not worth the postage it would take to ship them. He refused to believe me and finally admitted that he had sold a used stove or refrigerator either for them or with them as deposit to guarantee the buyers returning with payment.
Apparently after several months he suspected he'd never see his "Customer" again. "But" he said "The guy showed me the invoices where he had paid over $400.00. " Which was true as he had the monthly or quarterly invoices, complete with check number and amount.
I sympathized with him and said if he could get more than $5.00 (US currency) he would be lucky.
In one of Herman Hurst's seminal tome on the stamp business in the '30s and '40s he wrote;
"If it is made for a collectable, it is not collectable" a comment that made me gun-shy about purchasing FDCs and other contrived postal souvenirs from dealers or even postal agencies.
So Charlotte, toss them into the Holocaust project or sell them at a flea market table but don't fail to explain to any prospective buyer that their actual collectable value is somewhere just above "Nil".
However they often came in a nice hardwood display case that might be put to use for stamps or medals.
Charlie
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Good story, Charlie! And I believe it. I lost a friendship over "gold" souvenir covers: My friend enthusiastically showed me his "collection," and I tried hard to explain that he'd wasted his money without suggesting that he'd made an unwise purchase. We parted amicably, but he never spoke to me again.
You said, "'If it is made for a collectable, it is not collectable,'a comment that made me gun-shy about purchasing FDCs and other contrived postal souvenirs from dealers or even postal agencies." I don't go that far. I have a few FDCs and other philatelic "emissions" that work nicely in various web pages or exhibits. And some of them are philatelically valuable as far as I'm concerned because they represent almost the only known use of the stamps that frank them, or, I guess I should say are stuck to them! In other cases, they provide historical evidence of events that might be otherwise hard to document philatelically. Here's an example, from my Battle of the Atlantic exhibit; S.S. Quirigua was a United Fruit Company banana boat that was taken over by the U.S. Navy during the Second World War to serve as an armed stores vessel:
Bob
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
24 Sep 2014
11:04:33am
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Yes Bob, perhaps my "Gunshy" comment might be taken too literally. At the time I was just beginning to learn how the stamping business worked and had seen several fellow stampers pursue those dinner plates (Bradford Exchange, I think) that were supposed to be dramatic historical treasures and two collectors who had albums and albums stuffed with FDCs from that company in Wyoming, which they frequently explained were very valuable.
Also that was the era when Joe Granville was advising stamp investment as a foolproof path to wealth.
Over time I have come across several FDCs or prepared cachets that, as you mention illustrate some event such as those Icebreakers that carried supplies to Antarctica every year and the CGC Westwind which brought the supplies to Cape Christian (Baffin Island) and Cape Athol (Thule) the year I wintered over.
I'd replace them in a minute were I to come across a cover that had carried an actual letter from a crew man.
I wasn't thinking of the casual acquisition of covers like that, most of which did travel through the mail and despite the initial contrived circumstances do illustrate a historic event, or something hat demonstrates an event that has some personal significance.
By the way, your note about the civilian crews who backed up the Navy Armed Guard crews during WW II is right. It was technically illegal for them to man the guns, even to serve as ammunition handlers, as that would affect their non-combatant status. However in the Battle for the Atlantic in particular, Merchant Marine seaman often helped and even manned gun mounts since an inoperative naval cannon could mean the difference between life and death.
Have you ever read the story of Edwin J. O'Hara, a Cadet midshipman aboard the Liberty ship SS Stephen Hopkins who despite being injured, escaped from the engine room via the drive shaft passage way to the 4" or 5" gun on the ships stern, then, seeing the gun crew injured and abandoning ship, loaded rounds from the ready box,he aimed the deck gun, first at the German surface raider Stier's bridge, then at her hull as she was lowly circling his vessel. How he managed to get several rounds off that disabled and actually sank the German vessel must have taken super courage. Unfortunately, he died after the Hopkins sank in the lifeboat. Now if I could find a letter from one of the crew, even a FDC commemorating it's launching I'd write a detailed account of that adventure.
The US Merchant Marine Academy is the only one of our military schools that sent Cadets into the war zone during their training. And as a thanks for their service Merchant seamen were given access to some veteran's benefits about forty years after the war, about 1986, after most of them had passed away, a great example of how those veteran's were treated by Congress and an ungrateful nation, once they were no longer needed. During WW II those civilian sailors had a fatality rate about 30% higher than the USMC.
The thing is that those men sailed because they liked sailing, perhaps had no other skills but nautical and accepted the risks, It is another unknown story of quiet bravery.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Hi Everyone;
@ cdj1122;
Thank you for that fascinating story of the sea. I was a deck seaman in 1966-68. I served aboard the USS Arcadia AD23,
a destroyer tender. But it was tied up in port most of the time. That was way too boring, so I transfered to the
USS Valcour AGF1, a spy ship (diplomatic) in the Persian Gulf. We spent more time at sea than in port.
After getting out of the navy I worked on the C&O Train/car/passenger ferry from Ludington Michigan to Milwaukee,
Manotoc, and Keewaunee Wisconsin. Later worked on the Grand Trunk out of Muskegon MI. to Milwaukee Wis.
One memorable trip across the lake, was especially bad. It was winter, the roughest time of year, and halfway across
the lake the captain turned around and ran her back to port at flank speed. The C&O office was very worried,
because a ship had never aborted a voyage before!
Keep on stampin
Ken Tall Pines
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
25 Sep 2014
04:09:00pm
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Haha !
Destroyer Tenders (AD) and Submarine tenders (AS) only go to sea once a year, first to see if the engines still work, second to make sure they still float and third, to free up the propellers from the accumulated coffee grounds and broken clam shells.
Circling around the sea buoy once or twice is usually far enough to qualify for a Sea Service Ribbon.
.
I put almost three years on this cutter. Three five or six month WestPacs and one six month South Pacific cruise, and loved just about every minute.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
I have a cousin who spent most of his career in the Navy on a submarine tender in Scotland. Married a Scottish lass as a bonus.
Roger
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Hi Everyone;
Actually I probably exaggerated the year spent aboard the tender. The first cruise was to New York City, after taking on
artillery shells in Jersey. We were in NY about 4 or 5 days. Then back to Newport RI. our home port.
Newport wasn't too bad, touring an old castle and the Vanderbuilt marble mansion, and got to see the Kennedy Mansion on
the cliff walk.
Then in 1967 the ship sailed to Jacksonville Fla. for a month or so. It was cold and the snow was four inches deep there.
If you are old enough to remember the horrible winter of 1967, when the expressways in Chicago were all giant parking
lots, as thousands of motorists were stranded, for days.
The final cruise on that ship was a full month in San Juan Puerto Rico, in January! When we got back to the states, we
all commented, "why do all these people look dead?" They had lost their tans, but we had spent a whole month in the
tropical sun!
All this happened while my school friends were serving and dying in Viet Nam. The part of the 60s I would just as soon forget.
Keep on stampin
Ken Tall Pines
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Charlie, I am jealous, jealous, jealous! I joined the navy in 1962 to see the world as a member of a ship's crew. I served two years at the navy hospital in Yokosuka, Japan (admittedly, I asked for that posting, but in my "dream sheet" (a document that sailors fill out to request their preferred next duty station) I also as second and third choices duty on a destroyer or a cruiser.
After my two years in Japan, I asked for duty on a destroyer, or a cruiser, or an ice breaker, knowing that I was probably headed for the Fleet Marine Force. My next duty station was Field Medical Service School at Camp Pendleton. After graduating, I joined a rifle company in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. In late summer of 1965 we sailed on U.S.S. Magoffin, an attack transport, from Long Beach, California to Okinawa for additional training, then in January embarked on U.S.S. Paul Revere (another attack transport) for the Philippines for additional training and then South Vietnam, where we went ashore in an amphibious landing on January 28, 1966. Here's a cover I posted from Paul Revere:
I did enjoy my brief time on Magoffin and PaulRevere, although the days before landing in Vietnam were, well, just a bit nerve wracking!
I did have a couple of other experiences at sea, both when I was in Yokosuka. I did some research about sea snakes for some navy divers who were headed for Vietnam, and they reciprocated by inviting me aboard the submarine they were attached to, U.S.S. Wahoo (S.S.-565). We left Yokosuka early in the morning, sailed on the surface through Tokyo Bay to the open ocean, and then submerged. I got to see Mount Fuji through the periscope and listen with hydrophones to a ship passing overhead. I remember talking with a submariner who looked like Mr. Clean with a gold earring and had his bunk on top of a live torpedo. Here are three photographs that I took on that cruise:
My one other experience on a navy vessel happened when I was joined the crew of a workboat which headed out into Tokyo Bay to dump obsolete munitions overboard. For several hours, I watched while the crew disposed of hundreds of bombs and mortar shells, which are at the bottom to this day, no doubt rusting and releasing toxins into the ocean environment.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
So you are the one responsible for Godzilla!
Thanks for sharing the tale and the pics!
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
02 Oct 2014
07:27:43am
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Oh, yes, Yokuska and the memories when the exchange rate was 360Â¥ to the dollar and we were paid in Military Script. We stopped there several times for R&R while on the afore-pictured Coastie Cutter for a week or to and later on the several merchant ships that put in there or at Yokohama. On one trip I went with a young lady to a small resort where we could see Fuji-san through a window in the morning on days when the clouds cleared away from the crest. The tourists wee all climbing to the summit, but we preferred the towns and the lake.
I still have a 14" bronze replica of the Dai Butusu --The Great Buddha -- on the top of the entertainment center in my living room from a similar weekend at Kamakura. I'd love to be abl to do that once again.
I wish I had the photos I shot in those days.
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Just ran across this thread and remembered my photograph of the Buddha at Kamakura:
Bob
Login to Like
this post
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
Hi Everyone;
I also have a large Budda, that is hand carved from wood. I purchased it in Karachi
Pakistan in 1968. It has amazing detail, even in the hair, and was made from very
well seasoned wood as there are no cracks or checks at all, and is of a nice dark
brown wood with an oily sheen.
I also purchased two large bronzes; a Shiva (my favorite), and I think the other is
Ardhanarishvara. I've always enjoyed collecting Indian stamps and especially the
Indian states, of which there are dozens.
Every time I look at them, I have fond memories of my visit to Pakistan, and also
Madras and Bombay in India. I owe those visits the thanks for introducing me to
Asian spices, Curries and British style Chutneys.
Keep on stampin'
TuskenRaider
Login to Like
this post
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin
06 Jan 2015
02:15:00pm
re: 22 kt USA replica first day covers
These posts are extremely interesting, but they do not belong in this thread. I wish I had the capability to move selected posts, but I do not. It means I either have delete off topic posts, or move the entire thread. I am not going to delete anything up to this point, but any further off topic posts will be fair game.
Please get back to the topic (22 kt USA replica first day covers) or open a new thread elsewhere.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.