Massachusetts
BibliographyThese works cover Massachusetts postal history: The Postal Office of Massachusetts by Merrolla and Crowther contains a post office listing with scarcity. Boston Postmarks to 1890 by Blake and Davis is focus obviously on Boston, but is useful for anyplace in its period. The Postal History of Berkshire County Massachusetts by Lincoln and Drickamer concerns itself with the most popular county. You can access my online guide of Massachusetts Post Offices here. MarketThe market for Massachusetts was once fairly strong for a New England state. It is now only a bit stronger than Connecticut. Berkshire county is by far an away the area in most demand. Counties are less important then specific towns. There is a strong preference for 19th century covers. Among the 50 states, the District of Columbia, R.P.O.'s and Streetcars, Massachusetts rates as the 40th state in terms of percentage of cover sold at 47.38%. It ranks 5th in terms of the value of covers sold as percentage of all town cancels sold at 3.93%. The overall rank is 18th. This is a ten year running average. The most recent trends are declining. I thought it might be interesting to quantify the level of interest for all the counties in Massachusetts. 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 Massachusetts covers I sell are not sold to Massachusetts collectors, I decided to eliminate flags and doanes from the total of covers sold. While not perfect, this should provide more accurate results. This is what I found:
Barnstable 57.35%
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Covers For SaleAll Massachusetts CoversMassachusetts By County19th CenturyDoanesFlagsStamplessAdvertisingR.F.D.'sMilitaryWorld War OnePicture PostcardsMachine CancelsAuxiliary MarkingsFancy CancelsNon Standard PostmarksRegistered CoversSpecial Delivery CoversForeign DestinationsPatrioticR.P.O.'sSearch for a specific Massachusetts 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. |