Evening star., 1934-06-24
F|RST-DAY STAMP
SALES HERE URGED
Issues Placed on Local Mar
ket Get More Publicity,
Editor Says.

6NiNNi va JSs
First-day sales arrangements for
new stamps always should include the
Nations Capital, James Waldo Faw-
cett, stamp editor of The Star, told
crowded meeting of the Collectors
Club at the Thomson School Tuesday
evening.
The unprecedented expansion of in
terest in stamp collecting in recent
years, he argued, is directly traceable
tc the support given to the hobby by
the newspapers, and philately will
prosper in the ratio of continued pub
licity.
To illustrate his point the speaker
told of the scant notice given by the
press to the first-day sale of the
Maryland Tercentenary commemo-
rative at ST. Marys City. But sup
pose the event had been staged in
Washington" he said. The setting
would have been the greatest news
center in the world, the one city in
which stamps are front-page news
High officials would have fiocked to
the scene. Every news service would
have been represented by both report
ers and photographers. The radio and
the movies would have done their part.
And the stamp would have been a
source of added strength to philately
instead of merely lost opportunity.
1T might not matter if such things
happened only once or twice in hun
dred years, but it would matter very
seriously indeed if first-day sales were
regularly put on in obscure and dis
tant post Offices outside the ordinary
orbit OF the press or even in large
towns where stamps are not con-
sidered flrst-class news by the local
dailies.
CHECK the list Of stamps issued
since 1922 and it will be found that
those that went on f1rst-day sale in
sively reported, while those that were
offered elsewhere almost without ex-
ception received practically no ma
tional publicity whatever.
Compare the first sale of the
N. R. A. stamp at Washington with
that of the r'ewburgh stamp at New
burgh. Look up the way in which the
Chicago press neglected the first sale
of the Century of Progress stamps.
And then remember the scene at
the Washington city post Office Janu-
ary l, 1882, when the George Wash
ington Bicentennial series went on
sale and the tidal wave Of publicity
which followed. Also recall the ma
tional publicity for the Mothers day
stamp
But it is argued that commemora-
tive stamp is intended to do honor to
a local community and that for that
exclusive reason it should go on first
day sale in the neighborhood 1t IS
theoretically supposed to benefit. The
logic of that notion. however, Is not
sound. Maryland would have had
greater advantage through first-day
sale of its stamp in the Nations Capt.
tai than it had through the pitiful
farce played at st. Marys City. 1t Is
the Nation, not the neighborhood.
that brings out the commemorative,
and if local pride. were as wise as it is
passionate it would see to it that
Washington should be specified for
initial distribution. The resultant
spectacle would be that of the whole
country honoring single historic
neighborhood, not the neighborhood
honoring itself.
"A commemorative stamp is an ad-
vertisement. Appeals for such issues
always are based on the idea that a
stamp will help to call attention to
specific locality or event, bring visitors
to the scene, promote its welfare.
But where is that attention to be
found or that trade promoted? In
the town itself? Certainly not. 1t Is
from the country at large that the
visitors and the trade are to come.
Hence the practical value of first-day
sale where it will receive most pub
hcity, namely, in Washington.
Suppose we were trying to make
the best possible arrangement for the
initial sale of the Wisconsin stamp,
and for the benefit of philately as a
whole we desired to obtain the maxi
mum of notice for the event in the
press. which city would we chose,
Washington or Green Bay? The Post
Office Department faced that problem
and to please a local group decided
on Green Bay. We shall see hcw the
press handles the occasion. There
may be tremendous splurge in Wis
consin, but that will do philately lit
tie good as compared with Nation
wide story on the wires out of the
Nations Capital"
Fawcett declared that exclusive
parks sale of the national parks
stamps, had it been authorized, would
have killed the biggest philatelic
story in many months"
THE parks stamps" he insisted,
"are not commemorative. They are not
designed to do honor to anything or
anybody. They are national adver-
tising stunt, intended to promote ma
tional-not local-interest in the Ma
tion's property. 1t therefore is right
that they should go on sale in Wash
ington, where their appearance is as
sured of publicity equal to their i'm
portance."
The club will resume consideration
of the first-day sales problem at its
meeting at the Thomson School,
Twelfth and L streets northwest,
Tuesday evening. All collectors inter-
ested are invited to attend.