Babe Ruth Cachet - 1914 Balt. image

[h2oya311]

Anyone have any thoughts on this Babe Ruth Cachet w/ his 1914 Balt. News rookie image on it (looks like it was postmarked in 1939). Weird to see an item that used his 1914 image reprinted in 1939 don't you think??

Interested in people's thoughts on this item...and have you seen another?

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewi...id=19157477705

[T205 GB]

Baseball was a century old in 39? Hmmmmmm???

[Leon]

I was watching it. Neat item but still a commemorative type piece so I wasn't interested enough to go for it.

[t206wagner]

And he sold one with a 48 Leaf Ruth on it postmarked in 1939. How did that happen?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Baseball-Fir...#ht_165wt_1172

[rhettyeakley]

Somebody got ahold of some old plate blocks of the 1939 stamp and is creating these things. At least be smart about it... 1939 item with the image of a card produced a decade later? Criminals are so stupid sometimes!

[triwak]

Hmmm.... Something not right, here.

[Hankphenom]

These are called "Add-on" cachets, something fairly new to the hobby, I believe, where old stamped envelopes are imprinted with a new image. Cachet expert Phil Marks clued me in after I unknowingly picked up a couple for resale a year or so ago. The seller of the Ruth has a tiny "Add-on" listed under the image, although I don't know how the postmark got on there--maybe that's new, too. They are practically worthless, and the buyer of the Ruth really got hosed. These are made with the intention to deceive, I think.

[yanksfan09]

He must be dumb for using a 1948 image on that but it seems to be working for him as he raked in over $300 on that Ruth. Disgusting...

[novakjr]

I was keeping an eye on that too. I thought it was a pretty sharp looking piece, BUT knew exactly what it was.. I honestly can't believe it went for as much as it did.. Somebody is gonna be very disappointed once they figure it out...

[Steve D]

Covers like that are very easy to make. There are plenty of first day covers out there that have no cachets on them; they're just envelopes with the stamp and postmark on them.

It's a simple matter to take these uncacheted covers and print a cachet on them.

Steve

[rhettyeakley]

I think the guy is completely making these and not even bothering to find real stamped FDC's as both examples have the same date and time stamp 9 am on them. Looks like he has had a few rubber stamps made to help him on his way.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

I think the guy is completely making these and not even bothering to find real stamped FDC's as both examples have the same date and time stamp 9 am on them. Looks like he has had a few rubber stamps made to help him on his way.

Nope, no need to do that. The cancelling of the first day covers even back then was done a few different ways. The baseball centannial was a popular stamp. The official count of first day covers was 398,199. The majority of those were done my mail in orders, you'd send an envelope and money to cover the stamps to the official first day post office in advance. Once they'd made them they went in the mail. Most of those were done on the standard cancelling machine, or in the case of Cooperstown probably a few machines brought there for the day by the POD. Each machine could handle several thousand envelopes an hour. And since they were souvenirs the PO wasn't always good about changing the time since they had to do it manually.

The more interesting first day covers are the ones with odd rates like two stamps to make airmail, or odd size envelops which had to be cancelled by hand. People getting theirs at the ceremony itself would have also had a bigger chance of getting a hand cancel.
Another thing that was and still is done is making FDCs from unofficial towns. People would buy stamps then get them cancelled in the next town, or some other nearby town. One dealer made an amazing effort to get some from unofficial towns with names related to the subject of the stamp. sometimes that meant an early morning purchase and a long train ride.

Single stamps and plate blocks were popular choices. Normal blocks of 4 were not unusual.

Addressed first day covers with no cachet can be had very affordably. Usually between $10 and 15.

with some printers the ink won't cover or won't stick to the black ink of the cancel. So it's easy to print a cachet and make it look like it was under the cancel.

Add on cachets are becoming common, some are decent quality, some not as good, even the hand painted ones. Some of the nice ones are collectable as art, as long as they're advertised as add-ons. (These aren't all that well done, I'd probably be less interested in them than a blank FDC.)

More modern FDCs are even cheaper. Nearly all of the addressed uncacheted ones are the sort of thing most dealers would sell for $1 or less. I passed up a batch of maybe 10 thousand for $500. The dealer had them for sale individually at a quarter each.

Steve B

[Gary Dunaier]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

I think the guy is completely making these and not even bothering to find real stamped FDC's as both examples have the same date and time stamp 9 am on them. Looks like he has had a few rubber stamps made to help him on his way.

First Day of Issue slogan cancellations of that era all have 9.00am as the time, regardless of when the postmark was actually applied. And it's a Federal offense to forge official postal markings such as First Day cancellations.

[Hankphenom]

In this example, it looks like the cancellation is stamped over the Ruth card. If the Ruth was added on, how did they do that?

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewi...id=19157477705