Philatelic cover

A philatelic cover is an envelope prepared with a stamp(s) and address and sent through the mail delivery system for the purpose of creating a collectible item.

Like any other genuine item of mail these covers include postage stamps and postmarks of the time period and were processed and delivered by an official postal system.

Various types of covers, usually prepared by collectors, historians or other enthusiasts, have great historical significance and, regardless of the intention for the mailed item, are sometimes noteworthy or famous in their own right.

In the United States and Germany Air Mail delivery was greeted with the same national enthusiasm and fanfare as was experienced with the first trips to the moon by US Astronauts.

Among those who were on hand for the departure of the first flight from Washington, D.C., were President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.

A 1925 philatelic cover, produced by adding common foreign stamps to a usage of a United States 2-cent of the "Norse-American issue". The postal clerk should have rejected this cover, but instead the foreign stamps received US postmarks. From left to right, the stamps are from Austria , Germany , Ivory Coast , French Guiana , United States , and French India .
Last day of service cover from the discontinued post office at Officer, Colorado
Not all philatelic covers are as obvious as this one.
An A.C. Roessler cover carried on the first scheduled U.S. Air Mail flight from Washington, DC, to New York City, May 15, 1918