A trio of New Year’s covers to ring in 2024

U.S. Stamp Notes by John M. Hotchner

Christmas cancels on naval covers are often-seen souvenirs, but New Year’s cancels not so much.

I have accumulated 45 of the former, but only two Jan. 1 United States Navy ship covers. Both are from the battleship USS Pennsylvania, and I would like to share them with you as a means of wishing Linn’s readers a healthy, happy, peaceful and prosperous 2024.

The two covers are from successive years — 1934 and 1935 — but they are very different in their approach to the day.

The Jan. 1, 1934, cover in Figure 1 has a cancellation that instructs recipients to “Start your Resolutions.” Generally, the fun part is coming up with resolutions, and the hard part is seeing them through. But in the action-oriented U.S. Navy, apparently acting on your resolutions was policy.

In 1935, the mail clerk of the Pennsylvania had a more routine message, “Boost Your Navy,” as shown on the cover in Figure 2. The cover also has a great New Year’s cachet with an old captain labeled “1934” greeting a new sailor labeled “1935.”

Why aren’t there more Jan. 1 covers from Navy ships? Maybe those who would have made them were instead recovering from an excess of celebrating the previous evening.

One more Jan. 1 cover deserves mention here. Shown in Figure 3 is a New Year’s cover from Independence, Mo., with a fancy cancel wishing “Good luck in the New Year” on the background of a wishbone.

If you can report additional interesting Jan. 1 covers, I will include them in a follow-up column. Send images to me by email at jmhstamp@verizon.net, or by mail to John Hotchner, Box 1125, Falls Church, VA 22041-0125.

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