California
BibliographyThere has been many works published on California postal history. Here is a beginning: A Checklist of California Post Offices 1849-1988 by Richard W. Helbock California Doanes by Richard W. Helbock History of California Post Offices by H.E. Salley San Francisco Postal Markings 1847-1900 by John M. Mahoney California Postmark Catalog by John Williams You can access my online guide of California Post Offices here. MarketThe California market place is really 40 or so different marketplaces. Most collectors collect California by county or by a small group of counties. The most popular counties, like Inyo, Mono and Alpine, are as popular as any geographic area in the entire country. Some of the less collected gold rush counties are as unpopular as any geographic area in the country. In general, the market is strongest for southern material and weakest for the gold rush area. Among the 50 states, the District of Columbia, R.P.O.'s and Streetcars, California rates as the 13th state in terms of percentage of covers sold at 64.90%. It ranks 1st in terms of the value of covers sold as percentage of all town cancels sold at 12.34%. The overall rank is 1st. This is a ten year running average. The most recent trends are increasing. I thought it might be interesting to quantify the level of interest for all the counties in California. I figured the percentage of covers I have sold as compared to the total of the covers sold and the covers available. Since some of the California covers I sell are not sold to California collectors, I decided to eliminate flags and doanes from the total of covers sold. While not perfect, this should provide more accurate results. Here are the results by county:
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Covers For SaleAll California CoversCalifornia By County19th CenturyDoanesFlagsStamplessAdvertisingR.F.D.'sMilitaryWorld War OnePicture PostcardsMachine CancelsAuxiliary MarkingsFancy CancelsNon Standard PostmarksRegistered CoversSpecial Delivery CoversForeign DestinationsPatrioticR.P.O.'sSearch for a specific California town. Type in the name below and press enter or click on search.If you'd like printable version of these covers, please e-mail me. |