C37 from New York City

Here's a very scarce postal history item. Scott #C37 (5c coil) properly used in time frame from New York City to the Canal Zone.

The coil was issued in rolls of 500 and not sold individually at post offices. Most of the stamps were used at hotels and other places where stamp vending machines were located. Therefore most uses were non-philatelic and probably not saved.

C37 was issued on January 15, 1948. The 5c airmail postage rate was in effect from October 1, 1946 to December 31, 1948. You might think this stamp would be easy to find properly used on cover. However, in the estimation of some collectors this is probably one of the hardest uses to find of all the airmail stamps.

2 Hotel Post Offices

Two recent additions to my Essex County and Clinton County collections: postcards canceled at summer post offices. Summer post offices operated only during certain months of the years, usually May to October. For the most part they were located in tourist areas.

Hotel Champlain (Clinton County) was just south of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain. The example shown is from the 2nd Hotel Champlain post office which was in existence from 1891 to 1951. The cancel is the common 4-bar cancel used by many post offices during the era.

Whiteface (Essex County) was probably located in the Whiteface Inn on Lake Placid. The post office existed in a number of different periods. This is Whiteface #1 which was established in 1892 and discontinued in 1911.

Battle of Plattsburgh Pictorial

The Battle of Plattsburgh (Sept. 11, 1814) was probably one of the most important battles in the history of the United States. Many people haven't heard of it since it was at the same time as the Battles of Washington and Baltimore took place.

However, the American forces under General Macomb and Commadore Macdonough stopped a British advance that probably kept the northern parts of New York and New England as part of the United States rather than being part of Canada.

Every year, the BoP is commemorated by a large 3 day event. Each year, the Boy Scouts of America hold a camporee at the same time and sponsor a special pictorial cancel honoring the battle. This year's cancel shows the "Plucky Rooster" which was in a cage hit by a cannon ball, released and started crowing giving sailors of the American Fleet further motivation in their cause.

Last US Flag Cancel

Many post offices in the USA used flag cancels from the mid 1890s through the 1930s. The last flag cancel machine in use in the USA was at Sidney Center (Delaware County) in 1941. ]

Here's a last day of use of the flag cancel.

Unusual Contract Stations

I've become interested Contract Postal Units (CPUs), which are postal stations operated by private businesses under contract with the USPS.

My eventual goal is to publish a listing of CPUs in New York State. Currently, I have discovered at least 60 such offices based on information from the USPS website.

Although most mail is no longer postmarked by the CPUs, they do have cancelers available for document use and these are used to postmark covers if requested.

Valley Manor is a retirement community in Rochester. One of the amenities offered is that there is an office with postal services on site. Other CPU in the Rochester area are at RIT and the UofR, Strong Memorial Hospital and Lyell Video.

To emphasize again, these offices are operated by private business, NOT the USPS, but are part of the Postal System.

Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY) has its own postal station. It serves the 6500 students and 1000 faculty members.

Colgate University in Hamilton, NY serves 2700 students with a faculty of 300. The CPU is located in the O'Connor Campus Center commonly known as The Coop. I was surprised and pleased when I received my covers back from Colgate. They are using an unusual bicolor handstamp, probably to time date arrivals.

ACUNY, N.Y.

This "post office" in Clinton County was a branch of the Plattsburg, NY post office from August 1 , 1947 through October 1, 1954. It was originally called Military and was located on the local army base.

The information below is taken from http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/archives/acuny_content.html :

"The Associated Colleges of Upper New York (ACUNY), 1946-1951, was New York State's answer to the nationwide dilemma of assimilating World War II veterans into the educational system. The organization owed its beginnings chiefly to New York State Governor Thomas Dewey. In March 1946 the Governor held a conference of 85 New York State college presidents to evaluate the issue. Earlier studies by the State Education Department found that the existing colleges could not sufficiently absorb the anticipated 100,000 veterans seeking college-level education under the G.I. Bill of Rights.

"ACUNY was a joint venture between the state and private colleges of New York. Under the auspices of the Governor, the State Education Department, and ten college presidents, ACUNY received its charter from the Board of Regents on May 17, 1946. The charter awarded ACUNY nonprofit status and set its objective to provide the first two years of college for any qualified veteran who was rejected from one of the state's four-year colleges because of "insufficient housing, overcrowded classrooms and lack of instructional staff."

"Expediency was necessary in order to insure that the emergency facilities were established and ready to function by the fall semester 1946. The temporary Army and Navy facilities of upstate New York held enough housing and classroom space to alleviate overcrowding. The military sites chosen were the United States Naval Training Center (Sampson College, opened September 15, 1946), Rhoads Hospital (Mohawk College, opened October 16, 1946) and Fort Plattsburg (Champlain College, opened September 23, 1946). In February 1947 another center was launched in Middletown at the request of the community."

New York State Rural Stations

Welcome to the New York Postal History blog. I have created 2 blogs dealing with New York State and its postal history: this blog deals with post-1900 items. The other blog Empire State Postal History deals with pre-1900 items.

The rationale behind having 2 blogs is that most collectors tend to think either classic (pre-1900) or modern (post-1900). More are interested in the classic era than in the modern era. But there is much research to be done in the modern era.

One area that interests me is Rural Stations. Today the terminology is "CPO--Community Post Office" or "CPU--Contract Post Office". These terms can into use in the mid 1970s, before that time many smaller independent post offices were "closed" and became stations of larger post offices.

Pilot Knob was an independent post office in Washington County from 1907 to 1953. On May 1, 1954 it was established as a summer post office and rural station of Kattskill Bay. According to an article on Summer and Winter post offices by Dr. Chester Smith in the July 2000 The American Philatelist, the rural station was from 1954 to 1965 and 1966 through 1982.

Higgins Bay (Hamilton County) operated from 1938 to 1962 as an independent office before becoming a rural station of Lake Pleasant from 1962 to 1973. Dr. Smith says it was also a Summer office.

Blue Ridge (Essex County) was established in 1891 as Blue Ridge and then the name was changed to Blueridge from 1895 to 1909 before reverting to two words again. In 1963 it became a rural station of Schroon Lake. It was discontinued in 1966.

I am always interested in purchasing examples from any NYS rural stations.