Page 11 - Demo

It was my Grandma Mendy (Lucille Mendenhall) who gave me my first two Highway Post Office First Trip Covers%u2014way back when I was in grade school. While I didn%u2019t collect any stamps or covers for over 50 years, in early 2018 Lynn and I created a beautiful album for those covers that I%u2019d saved from my youth. After completing that album, I caught a philately bug, and began a collection of First Flight Air Mail Covers from Indiana. Then, while searching eBay for First Flight Covers, a First Trip Cover would regularly pop up. Which led me to start this collection.Like some other collectors of Highway Post Office First Trip Covers, I decided to limit my collection to covers from my home state. By only looking for Indiana covers I could create an interesting collection, yet not an overwhelming one. I also decided, like many other collectors, to go after both Trip 1 Covers and Trip 2 Covers, because they both represent first trips%u2014Trip 1 being the very first trip on a route, and Trip 2 being the first trip in the opposite direction. While other collectors work hard at obtaining all the Last Trip Covers as well, I decided to only collect a representative sample of them%u2014and I ended up with Last Trip Covers from roughly half the Indiana routes.The route designation numbers were taken from the United States Highway Post Office Cover Catalog by the Mobile Post Office Society. In creating this album, I also relied on Chapter 18, %u201cHighway Post Offices of Indiana%u201d by Charles L. Towle which can be found in Postal History of Indiana by David Baker. And I used The First Highway Post Office by James H. Bruns, as well as numerous on-line sources. Some of the routes represented herein operated wholly within Indiana, and some ventured into adjoining states.I%u2019m particularly drawn to covers with cachets (interesting and informative designs printed on the left side of the envelope), but cachets on Indiana%u2019s First Trip Covers are more common on some routes than on others. In fact, many cachets have a similar basic layout%u2014a map of Indiana (and sometimes an adjoining state) that depicts a simplified route. However, I was pleased to learn that covers from the initial First Trips%u2014on the South Bend, Peru & Indianapolis route%u2014had a very nice selection of interesting cachets. So I%u2019ve collected a variety of cachets from that particular route. I%u2019ve also included, in the back of this album, some cacheted covers that were canceled at special Highway Post Office bus events held at the Indiana State Fair.As I began my collection, I looked for covers with multiple stamps, interesting addressees, signatures of postal or civic officials, anything that would make the covers stand out more. But I quickly learned that such details were not as plentiful with Highway Post Office covers as they are with First Flight Air Mail Covers. Still, this has been a very satisfying collection to assemble.