Silver Rounds on First Day Covers

DisneyFan

A good friend asked me for advice on inherited boxes containing albums of First Day Covers with attached one ounce silver rounds he inherited.

Does anybody collect these or should the rounds be detached from the envelopes and sold as bullion?

ricko

@DisneyFan ... If it exists, someone, somewhere, collects it. I am sure there are people who collect these, though I do not know anyone. You could have him post on the BST to see what interest level may be.... Cheers, RickO

291fifth

What is the subject matter? Some topical items may bring a premium over the value of the silver. Show photos.

Jzyskowski1

Here’s a non silver example. Kinda
similar 😉🙀🦫

JBK

Someone bought 10?

Anyway, at $4 base you should be able to get the "investment" back (not accounting for inflation). They seem to be in good shape.

But they are just collectables so finding buyers might be a little tricky. Although, that is a neat medal showing all the coins.

As for the Disney stuff, there might be some kind of demand above silver value.

FrankH

Yeah, showing the coins is cool.
It reminds me of the royal FAMILY on the 1828 Bavaria Thaler

jmlanzaf

Most dealers strip out the coins and sell them...so. there's the answer.

DisneyFan

I did a little more research and this is what I learned. The slow end of US First Day Cover collecting began about 1975 with the entry of both the Franklin Mint and Reader’s Digest into the monthly FDC market. Both companies operated a monthly service that sent numerous FDCs to subscribers. The prices were high-usually close to $10 each for a cover that had a 13c or 15c stamp (the postage rate in the 1970s) and a 5c envelope. Millions of dollars of these postal products were sold into the philatelic marketplace, often to casual collectors who had no idea of their real value and that they were buying souvenirs, not collectibles. By 2000, the philatelic FDC marketers were largely gone, having left millions of collectors with hundreds of millions of dollars cost in material that was very overpriced, undesirable, and not collected by modern philatelists.

Too bad!

jmlanzaf

@DisneyFan said:
I did a little more research and this is what I learned. The slow end of US First Day Cover collecting began about 1975 with the entry of both the Franklin Mint and Reader’s Digest into the monthly FDC market. Both companies operated a monthly service that sent numerous FDCs to subscribers. The prices were high-usually close to $10 each for a cover that had a 13c or 15c stamp (the postage rate in the 1970s) and a 5c envelope. Millions of dollars of these postal products were sold into the philatelic marketplace, often to casual collectors who had no idea of their real value and that they were buying souvenirs, not collectibles. By 2000, the philatelic FDC marketers were largely gone, having left millions of collectors with hundreds of millions of dollars cost in material that was very overpriced, undesirable, and not collected by modern philatelists.

Too bad!

That's more about FDCs in general than the FDCs with medals. Although neither are in philatelic demand. There is a small bit of numismatic interest, but the supply far outstrips demand.

JBK

Sounds about right.

The Washington Stamp Exchange as "Artcraft" produced cacheted envelopes for FDCs for decades. They offered both serviced (stamped/postmarked) and unserviced covers. They lasted until about 10 years ago.

In the 1970s and into the 1980s you had PNCs - Philatelic Numismatic Covers. They combined coins and stamps with special postmarks. It was a valiant effort but ultimately fizzled.

PNCs got a new life when the mint offered PNCs (they didn't call them that) for the state quarters and the new Sacagawea dollars. The coins were from the first days' production and the stamps were postmarked on the relevant date.

I am sure that back when the Franklin Mint and similar companies got into the act they produced some beautiful trinkets, but now they are mostly just superfluous novelties.