The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-03-06
FORTUNE IN WASTE PAPER.
A Fifty Thousand Dollar Find of Old
Stamps in Philadelphia.

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the excitement caused by the wonder
full find of lot of ST.. Louis post
master stamps among a lot of old
correspondence sold to Edward D..
Hemingway as waste paper by a
PHILADELPHIA business house. Pre-
vious to the first government issue of
stamps in 1S47 enterprising postmas-
ters of various cities and towns we're
permitted to print and sell stamps of
their own. The use of one of these
stamps by the writer of letter in
sured the delivery of it to the address
by an employee of the postmaster of
the place to which the missive was
sent. To collectors these are known
as postmaster stamps. Some are en-
velope stamps, others adhesive. There
are great rarities among them, such
as the New Haven, the Millbury,
| Mass, and the st. Louis. The last
named is known as the bear stamps,
because the design consists of two
bears standing. The St. Louis denomi-
nations are 5, 10 and 20 cents.
A few years ago large number of
the fves and tens were found in ST.
Louis and the value of these two de-
nominations was thereby greatly re-
duced, as the price of stamp de-
pends on it's rarity. The 20-cent de-
nomination, however, continued to be
extremely rare, and good speci-
men was valued at $1,000. To-day it
is not worth more than from 5000 to
$500, and the find in Philadelphia is
responsible for this slump in the
market value.
The story, as told by Jno. A. Kle-
mann, a stamp dealer, of this city, is
interesting. Some time ago he heard
rumors that a number of st. Louis
postmaster stamps had turned up un-
expectedly in Philadelphia, and he at
once went there to investigate. He
learned that the aggregate value of
the find was about $4,000.
The letters, he was informed, were
all addressed to an old Philadelphia
firm, Chanley & Whelen. He could not
| find this firms name in an up-todate
directory of that city,. so he got hold
of directory of 1S45 and there came
across what he sought. In directory
of ten years later he found that
| Chanley had retired from business,
but that Whelan was still conduct
ing it, Further investigation show
ed that the house is now known as
Townsend & Whelan.
Such a lot of waste paper had ac-
cumulated that this firm called in
Hemingway and sold him great lot
of it at junk rates. Hemingway, in
working it over, discovered that
| MANY of the letters had strange
stamps upon them. He took few
specimens to stamp dealer, who
bought several which had or them
the government stamp of 1S47. One,
which bore St. Louis postmaster
stamp, he said he would keep or ap-
praise, not being certain of its genu-
ineness. Later on Hemingway met
q friend, Sartori, who is stamp COL
lector, and told him what he had
done. Sartori advised him to hurry
back to the stamp dealer and reclaim
the St. Louis specimen. This was
done.
Since then the mass of waste paper
has been more thoroughly gone over,
and, besides many of the old stamps,
there have been found six of the ST..
Louis scent issue, 6S of the St.
Louis 1O-cent and 20 of the 20-cent
issue. When the stamp dealers, who
had been holding on to their 2O-cent
St. Louis specimens in order to get
| COp pIlCSS lOl IuOlll, ASe1i ehAo oAo
comforting news they were more or
less panic stricken and threw their
specimens on the market so as to
obtain as much as possible for them
before the news of the discovery be-
came public property and collectors
were made wary.
The price of the St. Louis stamps
has been further affected by the re-
cent find of a dealer in medical ap-
pliances in that city by the name of
Schleiffert, one of whose aged Gus
toners presented him with a lot of
these stamps, which were on old let
ters addressed to him. In conse-
quence of the Schleiffert and Heming-
way finds the market price of the TO-
cent St. Louis has dropped from
5000 to about $40. If these discov-
cries keep on occurring the st. Louis
may ere long be selling at the same
rate as the more common postmaster
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