'We
did gangbusters here': After 83 years, American Philatelic
Society
Stamp Show returned to Omaha
Also
busy was Don Tocher, 81, of Boulder, Colorado, who displayed
a table
of U.S. classic stamps and envelopes. Collectors have to be
good
detectives, he said, so finding flaws or anomalies that make
items
valuable was a good match for his engineer’s mind.
One
letter in Tocher’s display had the distinction of combining a
rare stamp and a rare cancellation marking. The 1869 stamp
depicted
Columbus landing at San Salvador, but it was unpopular with
the
public and discontinued after one year. Making the find more
unusual
was the fact that the stamp was affixed to an envelope that
had a
handwritten cancellation mark from Augur, Nebraska, in 1869.
Augur,
later Fort Omaha and now part of north Omaha, had a post
office for
only nine months, Tocher said. That makes the envelope and
stamp
worth several hundred dollars.
Tocher
collected stamps as a child, he sidelined the hobby as he
grew older.
His interest reignited, however, because his father-in-law
proved to
be an avid stamp collector, a bit of a drinker and a bad
poker
player.
“He
paid (poker debts) in duplicates from his collection,”
Tocher
said. “I noticed that you could sell them and I peddled
a few
to get started.”