Uncommon international uses of the 1962 4¢ Malaria stamp

In my previous Modern U.S. Mail column (Linn’s, Feb. 10, page 16) I described and pictured uncommon domestic commercial uses of United States Scott 1194, the 4¢ Malaria Eradication commemorative of 1962.

In this column I have examples of the same stamp used on mail to foreign countries.

International commercial uses of modern material are particularly difficult to locate because they have to be retrieved from overseas. Foreign dealers think even less of this material than do dealers in the United States, and thus they do not attempt to acquire, save and sell it.

The varied types of international uses located by the first-day cover collector introduced in my previous column are particularly interesting.

The destination uses he found include covers to exotic destinations such as the Central African Republic, Ghana and, as shown in Figure 1, Nepal.

This up-to-½-ounce letter to Nepal was mailed May 1, 1962, at the 25¢ per ½-ounce international airmail letter rate. In addition to the 4¢ Malaria Eradication stamp issued that same year on March 30, the cover is also franked with the 4¢ Space Needle commemorative (Scott 1196), the 4¢ Louisiana Statehood commemorative (Scott 1197), and the 13¢ 1961 Liberty airmail stamp (Scott C62), totaling the 25¢ airmail postage due.

The 3¢ Statue of Liberty postal card in Figure 2 (Scott UX46), additionally franked with the 4¢ Malaria commemorative stamp and canceled Aug. 23, 1962, pays the 7¢ international surface postal card rate to England.

A third nice usage is shown in Figure 3, on the same type of 3¢ Statue of Liberty postal card, used Oct. 25, 1962. This time the postal card is additionally franked with the 4¢ Malaria commemorative as well as the 4¢ 1962 Apprenticeship commemorative (Scott 1201). These together pay the 11¢ airmail postal card postage to all countries, including Japan.

Figure 4 shows an example of the up-to-one-ounce international surface letter rate to all countries; in this case to Scotland.

The 11¢ postage required on this letter posted May 4, 1963, was paid by a combination of our 4¢ Malaria commemorative, the 1960 4¢ Abraham Lincoln Credo stamp (Scott 1143), and the 1957 3¢ Religious Freedom stamp (Scott 1099).

In this set of covers franked with the 4¢ Malaria Eradication stamp we see a wonderful variety of four different international commercial usages.

The collection of international commercial usages of this stamp includes many other superb examples not shown here, such as an airmail letter from American Samoa to New Zealand, and a special delivery letter to Canada.

Altogether, the FDC collector of this stamp has certainly met the imposing requirement of showing a wide variety of commercial uses of his stamp.

Tony Wawrukiewicz and Henry Beecher are the co-authors of two useful books on U.S. domestic and international postage rates since 1872. The third edition of the domestic book is now available from the American Philatelic Society, while the international book may be ordered from the web site www.spiritone.com/~tonywaw.