First Day Cover - United States - 1965 - Overseas Mailer

First Day Cover - United States - 1965 - Overseas Mailer

First Day Cover

United States

1965-07-17

Overseas Mailer reissued other first day covers with a modification. In the case of the Dante FDC, Overseas Mailer added a small, green, woodcut-style portrait of Dante to the Chickering-Jackson FDC. The Chickering-Jackson first day cover was designed by Charles R. Chickering and issued by Gladys Jackson's Jackson Cover Service (New York, New York). Chickering retired from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1962 after a fifteen-year career there as a stamp designer. He designed first day cover cachets for Jackson from 1963 until his death in 1970.

Chickering's cachet features a reversed detail from Eugène Delacroix's first major painting, Dante et Virgile aux enfers (known in English as The Barque of Dante or Dante and Virgil in Hell). Above this detail is a depiction of the storm of lustful sinners from Inferno 5. Text from the top of the cachet down reads: "Dante Alighieri / Poet · Philosopher / of the Middle / Ages"; "Dante and / Virgil in / Hell"; "Born in / Florence 1265"; and "First Day of Issue" beside which are the names Jackson and Chickering.

93 × 166 mm

Mellone no. 1268-21

Charles R. Chickering

Gladys Jackson

Jackson Cover Service (New York, New York)

Eugène Delacroix

Overseas Mailer

English