As postal business declines in the U.S. and around the world, post office closures are a reality mailers and collectors have to face. Especially in rural areas the thought of closing U.S. post offices is creating real concern among locals who use their post office as a town center, meeting place and hang out for over the fence type shmoozing.
As recently as thirty years ago, the post office didn't even have to be rural to offer a relaxed, hang-out atmosphere. Tri-state area (NY, NJ, CN, for you international readers) had its share of places for a neophyte collector to pass the time of day, while having a friendly clerk show you what new and old issues were available in his drawer. Today, it's usually all business.
Philatelists Watch as Stamp Sources Close
But business is bad. The USPS even has the historic B Free Franklin post office in Old City, Philadelphia on the chopping block. It would seem that just as the post offices in many rural areas are the center of towns, the B Free Franklin post office is, at least historically and philosophically -- if not financially -- the center of the nation. To do away with it is to turn our back on our heritage, both national and philatelic.
Franklin and Philately
Benjamin Franklin is one of those personalities without whom it seems stamp collecting would not even be possible. After his conductivity of lightning discover he is perhaps best known for Poor Richard aphorisms. Of course philatelists know he was the country's first postmaster; that later over a period of years he became the face of philately and stamp collecting in the U.S.; that he appeared on the first official U.S. postage stamp ever issued.
Benjamin Franklin had no interest in stamps personally, for a very simple reason. There were no postage stamps when he was alive. There was mail delivery, certainly, but letters were stampless, the envelope's franking handstruck or written markings. The proof is in the surviving postal history related to Franklin. The rare B Free Franklin frank (free to the statesman and diplomat) still exists in the 21st century in the form of a handstruck postmark cancelation used at the B Free Franklin post office in Old City Philadelphia.
While Washington and Lincoln are clearly the most popular presidents/statesmen on stamps, Franklin's accomplishments have been highlighted in relation to the Renaissance Man he truly was. There are no lack of stamps honoring Franklin, from U.S. #1 to the recent block of four that honored the many facets of the man.
In our time, Franklin was included in the name of innumerable stamp clubs and stamp collecting chapter organizations, including the now-defunt Benjamin Franklin Stamp Clubs that were active in schools across the United States.
If there was nothing else to tie him to philately, his face on the rarest U.S. postage stamp, the one cent Z-grill, would keep him in philatelists hearts and minds.
Obviously closing the post office in Philadelphia will not lessen Franklin's presence in our albums and collections. So copious are Franklin related stamp issues, that it would be easy to go broke collecting just the variety of first day covers that Franklin appears on. Still, in the city of the drafting and signing of the United States Constitution -- yes, he had a bit to do with that to -- the powers that be at the USPS are considering closing his post office. Can that be acceptable to the stamp collecting community?
Surely they will stop short of closing the colonial America style post office located in the home of the scientist/statesman/journalist who was instrumental in creating the U.S. postal system as we know it today. Some symbols are worth keeping, no matter what the cost.
