Covers with exotic contemporary uses are more difficult to find than in the past. Even common uses franked with definitives or commemoratives can be elusive as the use of electronic mail and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, supplant personal and business mailings. And today many companies shred their incoming commercial covers to comply with privacy laws and frank their outgoing mail with meter imprints.
Fortunately there still is a small number of collectors of modern postal history who actively search for and save what little of this scarce material that remains to be found. If postal history collecting survives into the 22nd century, these covers will be the gems of the future.
Here are a few examples from my collection of incoming airmail to Luxembourg from the United States:
30c per ½ oz. Airmail Rate to Europe
28 Apr 1939 to 1 Oct 1946
Carey, Ohio, 25 Sep 1946, to Rodenbourg, Luxembourg, with
30c Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Issue sole franking.
30c per ½ oz. Airmail Rate to Europe
28 Apr 1939 to 1 Oct 1946
+
20c Registry Fee
1 Feb 1945 to 1 Jan 1949
New York, NY, 26 Jul 1946, transit Luxembourg-Ville, 30 Jul 1946, received Mondorf-les-Bains [German cds with “Bad” excised]
15c per ½ oz. Airmail Rate to Europe
1 Oct 1946 to 7 Jan 1968
Chicago, Illinois, 25 Apr 1964, to Rodenbourg, Luxembourg, with
15c Montgomery Blair commemorative airmail sole franking.
21c per ½ oz. Airmail Rate to Europe &
60c UPU Special Delivery Rate
21c Airmail: 1 Jul 1971 to 31 Dec 1975
60c Special delivery: 16 May 1971 to 18 Apr 1976
Kansas City, Missouri, 26 May 1973, to Neiderwiltz, Luxembourg, with backstamps of Luxembourg-Ville and Wiltz on 30 May 1973.
The 21c airmail nicely pays the airmail postage, while the 60c special delivery stamp pays the special delivery fee. Posted by Robert F. Schaeffer, Luxembourg’s honorary consul in Kansas City at this time.
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