Americover 2018

This past weekend we went to the Americover 2018 Georgia on My Mind convention hosted by the American First Day Cover Society (AFDCS). It was held at the Hilton in Peachtree Corners, GA. Even though my husband is a First Day Cover collector and I really don’t know a lot about this, I had a really good time at this and learned a lot of interesting things. I expected to go sit in a corner and knit quietly while my husband had fun, but I was curious and ended up meeting new people and learning new things. Since we had never been to this before, we really didn’t know what to expect.

When we got there, it was free parking and free registration (free is always our favorite word!). While my husband walked around the dealers, I wandered around too. There was a nice exhibit and you were asked to vote on your favorite exhibit. The US Postal Service was there also and I stamped my program with the 2 different cancellation stamps they had.

One man talked to me about how he is collecting postcards, putting the related stamp on the front of the picture, and then getting it canceled. He gave me a popsicle postcard and put the popsicle stamp on it which I then took and canceled it with the popsicle cancellation stamp from the postal service.

When I went outside to sit and knit, I talked to some other people who asked me what I collected and if I was going to the seminars. After finding out that they were free too and that we didn’t need to sign up for a class (which is very different from the knitting festivals that I go to!), I got my husband and we attended 2 seminars.

The first seminar was “How Therome Cachets are Created”  presented by Tom Peluso. It was very interesting to learn about his process of producing cachets. He uses Photoshop to make his cachets in the same way that I use it to make scrapbook pages. When he was finished, he gave us all a First Day Cover on the First USPS Scratch and Sniff Stamps.

The second seminar we attended was on the Basics of Publicity presented by Lloyd de Vries. Mr. DeVries is also the President of the AFDCS. He was really interesting and full of wonderful information. My husband says that Mr. de Vries has an awesome website, Virtual Stamp Club,  that he frequently visits. This session was on how to publicize your event, the best way to write a press release and who to contact to get it spread.

Things I Learned:

1.     According to the American First Day Cover Society web page, “ First Day Cover (FDC) is an envelope or card bearing a stamp which is canceled on the day the stamp is initially placed on sale by the postal authorities. A FDC with the Snowy Egret stamp (A) is shown with a New York, NY, First Day of Issue cancel (B) and a cachet (C), pronounced ka-shay, which compliments or tells us something about the stamp.:”

2.     I should have put the stamp and the cancellation on the back page of the program. There was a different cancellation stamp for each day.

3.     When writing a press release, make sure you answer – who, what, when, where, and how to contact.

4.     Make sure you send a press release in a format that can be edited.

5.     Send publicity request to the managing editor or the assignment editor.

6.     Make sure your topic in an email is specific to request and not just “press release.”

Attending this event has made me more curious about First Day Covers. I have been doing a lot of envelope art (click here to see the pictures) because I’ve been writing to my parents every week. My dad is 99 years old and can’t hear me over the phone, so I’ve taken to letter writing. I may want to do some envelope art to coincide with the new stamps coming out (I think these might be cachets but I’m not sure.) I will be doing more research and looking at the FDC. I want to look and see if there are any about Knitting and Spinning Yarn. I also want to look up Education ones also. I’m glad we went to this and hope to go to future ones!

Related post: Southeastern Stamp Expo 

Have you been to any of these? Please share.

Original photos by Pat Hensley