This past Saturday dawned with the promise of higher-than-usual temperatures for December, with highs expected in the mid-60s, so nice weather to drive to a stamp show. The MSDA winter show at the Lindner Conference Center in Lombard, IL is an easy 2.5-hour drive. The show opened at 10am, so I hit the road at 7:00 just in case there were delays. Glad I did, as 3/4 of the drive was pea soup fog. 75mph through fog is all sorts of fun!

I got there at 9:45, fifteen minutes before opening, and there were already 20-25 collectors waiting to get in. It’s unusual in that even though this is relatively small 2-day show (for Chicagoland area), that’s more people than were waiting to get into CHICAGOPEX the first day. Speaking later with one of the dealers about it he said that this show pulls a very different customer base than CHICAGOPEX does, which makes his doing the show worthwhile even though it is only 3 weeks after CHICAGOPEX.

I knew going in from the dealer list that there would be very little for me in the area of U.S. revenues. The main reason for going was to see one dealer that I had spoken with the week prior. Even though I had bought some material from him at CHICAGOPEX, at that time he alluded to the fact that he had some interesting material en route that I might find interesting.

Denny Peoples out of Indianapolis, IN, has one of the best “eclectic” stocks out there. He does very little in the way of stamps per se, rather focusing on unusual covers, revenue documents, ephemera, and cinderella meterial. A large portion of what he carries won’t be found in the Scott catalog. Every now and then he gets in some stamps though.

I see him 3-4 times a year and he always has something new and interesting for me to buy.

Other than his table though, the rest of the 15 or so dealers offered nothing for me and I was out of the show shortly after noon and home by 3pm.

Still, a worthwhile trip despite the brevity.

Starting off with a few stamps:

Listed as ‘purple’ the $1.90 Foreign Exchange was printed in a very unstable ink that shows up in shares ranging from brown, gray, violet, blue, to green. The green shade below could possibly also be due to chemical or environmental exposure.

Another denomination for my Brady’s Bend Iron Co. collection. I’m trying to find this printed cancel on as many different 1st-3rd issue stamps as I can. See this page for more information.

An unattributed “COLUMBUS” oval handstamp cancel.

A fairly scarce “Solon Palmer” perfumery cancel. Very late usage.

And some documents…

Nice wine grower vignette.

Bank of Salem check with a 2-cent Certificate orange.

A pair of railroad pieces…

Attractive document. The paper is very fragile and translucent, like an onionskin.

Nice Indian vignette on a check from the Tuolumne County Water Co.

An illegal/improper usage. Looks like it is underpaying the tax by a cent.

Illegal/improper use of a 2-cent Express imperf pair on cover, with a 3-cent Washington (#65) pasted over and canceled, with an attractive green handstamp. 1989 PF Cert. Subsequent to the cert, someone erased pencil notations on the cover stating that the stamps had been lifted as part of the expertization process.

Lastly, a document with a pair and block of 6 of the 50-cent Foreign Exchange 1st issue. While one wouldn’t think so, blocks of this stamp are fairly scarce. According to the Curtis Census, this block is tied for the largest known multiple.