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Running for covers

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

OBAMA: "So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have 
traveled."
RUNS :05

It's been months since the Inauguration...but many stamp collectors are still awaiting 
their souvenirs.

Envelopes postmarked on the day a president is inaugurated are called Inaugural Covers, 
or "Inaugurals." For decades, the Postal Service has offered special cancellations, <and, 
for recent inaugurations, special postmarks in the new president's hometown.

For Barack Obama, there were cancels offered in Chicago and Honolulu. There were even two 
for Joe Biden, in his birthplace and hometown. But the big one every four years is from 
Washington.>

Anticipating that there were would be a big demand for the <Washington> postmarks, requests 
for large quantities from commercial producers went to a postal service facility in Kansas 
City that specializes in this sort of thing. But most requests for collectors and small 
producers are being handled by the Washington Post Office itself.

And it was flooded. Requests submitted on or before Inauguration Day, January 20th, are 
done. Those submitted just after that date are, based on my own experience and that of 
other collectors, now dribbling back to their owners.

<There are only a few clerks around the country you'd WANT to cancel your stamp collecting 
souvenirs, so it's not as if the Postal Service can call in the reserves.>

It's not really anybody's fault, either. It's just sign of the enormous good will and 
popularity Mr. Obama brought to the White House.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting, 
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.

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