In my younger days, I used to spend a lot of time kayaking on the Selway River. On the way home from one of my kayaking trips, I saw an estate sale sign near Kamiah and decided to stop. The sale had been going for quite a while and was pretty well “picked over.” On the cashiers stand there was a carefully guarded shoebox full of old general issue postage stamps. They were for sale for $5.00 each, which at the time was far more than they were worth. When I asked where the stamps came from, I learned the story….
The estate sale that was being held was that of an old bachelor who had lived there his whole life. His only heirs were some distant cousins back east, who had come to the funeral, taken one look at the old run-down house, and offered the contents to the neighbors in exchange for their cleaning the place out. The neighbors (who were holding the sale) had found two large trunks full of old letters in the attic. Since they were not related, they had no interest in the correspondence (which they burned) but thought the stamps might be worth something. The week that they were setting up for the estate sale they kept putting batches of the envelopes in the bathtub so the stamps could soak off and be sold.
When I asked if there were any of the old letters or envelopes remaining, they first said “No,” but then one of them remembered that there was one still in the garbage because the stamp had torn when they were trying to get it off. They went and brought the envelope to me. Despite the missing portion of the stamp and the water damage, it was still possible to see that the postmark read “Pierce City, W.T.”
Postscript: While there were hundreds of thousands of general issue postage stamps issued each year, the number of postmarks from small towns was very low, and few remain in existence. There are many collectors of these rare postmarks and they have significant monetary value.
Here is a history lesson from: http://www.clearwatermuseum.org/history.htm
“Clearwater County was originally in Washington Territory so the Washington Territorial Legislature included this area in Spokane County. The Washington Legislature established Shoshone County in 1861 with Pierce City as the county seat.
Discovery of gold brought thousands of people to Pierce and increased the need for a more centrally located government, independent of Washington Territory. March 3, 1863, Idaho was declared a territory with Lewiston as the first capital.”
That one postmark in good condition would certainly be worth far more than their entire box of stamps, and who knows how many others there were. As well as the monetary value of the postmarks, that much correspondence from that era in Idaho’s history would have been a priceless addition to the historical archives of the state…