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Lloyd's Fun FDCs Gallery

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Lloyd A. de Vries, president-for-life of The Virtual Stamp Club, has been the "Modern FDCs" columnist for Linn's Stamp News since 1997.

Linn's, however, doesn't always have the room to show all the illustrations Lloyd submits. Here are some that didn't make it into recent issues:

From the November 2009 column, a discussion of combination first day covers.
A Bennettoons FDC used a French Jules Verne stamp with the 2002 Happy Birthday stamp; Verne and the stamp were both born on Feb. 8. USPS rules allow the cancellation of foreign stamps under some circumstances.
A 2007 Sc. 4153 Pollination stamp that included Morrison's bumblebee on a Sc. U599 Honeybee stamped envelope from 1980, with a label cachet by Lloyd.
The USPS will even cancel a faux stamp (called a "Cinderella" in philately) such as this sticker included with the first Love stamp (Sc. 1475) on a Sc. U616 Love envelope. The label cachet is by Pugh Cachets. Lloyd supplied the cinderella. The envelope was issued at the 1989 American First Day Cover Society convention, where Lloyd and Julian pooled resources, and this FDC has the show cancel on it.
The October 2009 column discussed the use of digitally-produced "mock-ups" by cachetmakers to show the USPS Cancellation Services how they want their covers serviced. Linn's illustrated Lloyd's mock-up of a Dragon Cards combo. Compare the demo (left) with the actual cover:
The August column talked about "Unofficial City" cancels (FDCs serviced on the first day in cities other than the "official" first-day city) and the new nationwide issuance policy that says U.S. stamps go on sale in every post office on the first day. Lloyd submitted some illustrations of past "UOs:"
The stamp for this "unofficial city" first day cover was flown from New Mexico to Ohio in a private plane to take advantage of the pictorial postmark, in the era before a grace period for pictorials. There's now a 30-day grace period.
Sc. 2089 was issued in Oklahoma, but there's a town named after the famed athlete in Pennsylvania.
Lloyd feels the Sinatra first day of sale postmark in May, on the bottom of this cover, was more interesting than the proposed FDOS postmark.
This "UO" postmark was only available on the first day of the Sinatra stamp, and the name of the station, which provides a perfect tie-in with the stamp, won't appear on the new FDOS postmarks.


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Lloyd A. de Vries
©2008 de Vries Philatelic Media



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