Coolidge on Coolidge

Here is a strange item that my Dad found during his years of collecting.   At some point, afetr retiring to Arizona he found this copy of the $5 Calvin Coolidge stamp postmarked in, of all place, Coolidge AZ.


The stamp itself is the high value of the classic 1938 Presidents set, and it's nice when it shows up in mixtures.  But it is always disappointing when I forget that it's not actually worth much.  The Scott catalog (2023) lists it at $3.  I guess it's not that uncommon.  

The question is, how do we value this one with the obviously rare socked-on-the-nose matching postmark?  I figured I'd run it at $9.50 ... and it sold within hours.

Postmarks are an odd area to try and collect.  The magazines run articles all the time about how interesting they are or how uncommon some postmarks can be, but there is never any info on how they affect the value of a stamp.  Personally, I will drop an extra $1 here and there for clear postmarks from places like Belgian Congo.  So I suppose other customers like me exist out there.

In this case, the collector might not even care about the postmark exactly.  Maybe it's just a neat side note for a set that he already collects.  Or maybe he has a collection of just stamps with postmarks matching the topics.  I have no way of knowing.  I just enjoy finding odd items and getting them to collectors.


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