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A pictorial cancel for James Stewart was offered on the same day that a stamp for his friend Henry Fonda was issued. VSC member Bonnie Fuson took advantage of the coincidence..	A number of Virtual Stamp Club members got one of these unidentified first day covers for the Holiday Cookies stamps. At first, one of the recipients thought it was a gift from the USPS' Stamp Fulfillment Services and its Cancellation Services unit, but, no, the covers were just routed through SFS. There appear to have been 15 of them. Read more in our message board

The three first day covers here together make one picture when displayed properly with 14 different stamps and first day postmarks. It appears to be hand-drawn or at least hand-colored with watercolor markers or felt-tip pens. The cachetmaker is unknown, but it took him or her nearly two years to complete the servicing.	Subscription programs, including American Commemorative Postmarks (formerly Souvenir Pages) like this one, accounted for about 2 percent of the postmarks applied by Cancellation Services in 2004. This page, for the original version of the Eagles coils, required two of them.

Lloyd A. de Vries
©2006 de Vries Philatelic Media