Dating an early PCA Badge

[Nordschleife]

Yesterday I re-discovered an item that I thought I'd lost a long time ago: an early PCA club badge in it's original envelope. I test-mounted it once on my 1968 911 but then decided to just keep my old "Donner" Nurburgring badge instead.

Based upon the envelope's stamps and the PCA return address + maker's mark on the reverse of the badge, can someone please help me date this particular badge? Photos are below. Thanks in advance!

Best,
Andy in New Hampshire

[Chuck Miller]

Andy,

I hope these two threads help....

https://www.early911sregistry.org/fo...A-badge-period

https://www.early911sregistry.org/fo...tage-PCA-badge

Cheers

[Nordschleife]

Thank you very much, Chuck. Those threads were excellent. As ever your help is deeply appreciated!

I just measured it: 90mm diameter. Given the larger diameter (90 vs 88mm), the translucent red enameling, and the maker's mark "E. Wiedmann" from "Frankfurt aM" (Frankfurt am Main) seems to indicate this is a pretty early badge.

I wonder if the Woodrow Wilson 7-cent stamp and the Abe Lincoln 4-cent stamp on the envelope could help narrow the actual dates down. Unfortunately the post office's cancellation mark on this third-class envelope does not give a precise date/year.

Best,
Andy in New Hampshire

[Nordschleife]

Looks like the Lincoln stamp was first issued in Nov, 1954, but the Woodrow Wilson stamp didn't appear until January 1956.

So early 1956 would be the earliest possible date.

Now if I can only figure out when these two postal stamps were replaced/retired. That usually happened when postal rates changed.

[raspritz]

Stamps are never retired in the USA. You could weigh the total package and then look up when the third-class postal rate for a small package of that weight was $0.11. I imagine somebody at PCA rummaged through a drawer to find two stamps that added up to the correct amount. It's a bit strange that no postal zone or zip code was used in either address. 2-digit Zone codes were introduced in 1943 and 5-digit Zip Codes in 1963. You could also look into when the PCA National Office moved from Alexandria, VA.

[NorthernThrux]

Bill Sholar, the founder of PCA, lived at that address.

Tracing down some old internet archives, January 1961 is when the Executive office moved to a P.O. Box. The issues are all online at archive.org and maybe you find something about the badges if you read them cover to cover. At any rate, that was mailed some time between Dec 1955 and Dec 1960 based on the return address. But we can do better to narrow it down.

The Woodrow Wilson 7 cent stamp was only produced in 1956 (from Jan 10th). That was the cost of a certified letter in those days, so that's what it was used for. The purple Lincoln stamp was produced on July 31st 1958, the day before the price of a letter (or the 1st oz of a package) was raised to 4 cents. There is an earlier version in which his face is not as "white" or "bright", but was also 4 cents.

Next increase didn't happen till 1963. So between the Panorama issue dates for the change of address of the Exec Office and the stamp issue dates, we can say that your badge was likely mailed between Aug 1958 and Dec 1960.

Hope that helps.

Ravi

[Nordschleife]

Ravi, that’s awesome detective work. Thank you! A few minutes ago I sent an email to Mr. George Whitmore, the PCA Historian at the Founder’s Region (Potomac) to ask his opinion. But I think you’ve solved it already.

Best,
Andy from New Hampshire

[Brendo]

Wow! How 'bout a nice round of applause to Ravi for the win!