Historic junk mail

Most items in the auction, collected by the late James H. Hayes of Plymouth, are from Michigan companies or were mailed to individuals in Michigan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because these items are so rare, few outside the collector’s milieu has seen them.

Pre-auction bid estimates range from $30 for a trompe l’oeil paperboy jumping through a newspaper to $300 for a rare Markham Air Rifle cover.

Whitford estimated the collection’s value is $150,000 to $200,000. It´s likely the largest in the state. He said many collectors like to focus on items from their hometown or county.

“I like the diversity of items built in the capital city and the people who made the city,” said Whitford, a collector of items from Ingham County, especially from the 19th century. He said 98 percent of the Hayes collection represents Michigan cities. He said what attracts collectors to the advertising pieces are the graphics, many done with color lithography and black and white letterpress from wood blocks. The artists of most of the cover envelopes have been lost to time.

In the Hayes’ collection are several covers showing quaint graphics from the Daisy Air Rifle Co. Whitford said advertising covers were in use as early as the 1840s and reached their apex of popularity between 1870 to 1920.

Although many postal history lots appeal to geeky collectors looking for ghost postmarks from long-gone postal stations, there are some items that would appeal to Michigan history buffs or curiosity seekers. Local collectors may be attracted to the 20 items associated with Ingham County, including the full-color illustration of a four-door sedan from the Durant Auto Co., a REO Motor Car Co. envelope, a card from the short-lived Lansing New Way Motor Co. in 1913, one from Queen Flake Baking Powder and cards from the Michigan School for the Blind showing an exquisite architectural scene of the campus.

One Lansing card is from the Lyons Patent Hat Conformator, which displays a John Cleese look-a-like wearing the strange device used to measure and fit hats to a specific head. Another from Lansing is for the “Appeal to Reason,” a socialist magazine of the early 1900s showing a devil-like man in pain.

Whitford said a rare cover envelope from Detroit featuring a “Mail by Pail” graphic of a tugboat delivering mail to a freighter on the Detroit River should get some spirited bidding. The card is from the 11th annual Convention of the National Association of Letter Carriers, held in Detroit in 1900. He said collectors take special interest in postal ads from gun manufacturers, cigar companies, breweries, tobacco companies and the Michigan State Fair. Cards with American flags, especially from the Civil War era, are also popular, as are depictions of boats and bicycles. The macabre arts of embalming, undertaking and monuments are also prevalent.

One, from a Detroit area manufacturer of “out-of-sight traps,” shows a disappointed cat gazing at three mice in traps. Another animalcentric piece shows a blue-black illustration of a snake emerging from a wine glass with the slogan “Why he saw snakes. No insinuation intended.” There are also early examples of religious propaganda from the American Home Missionary Society of New York describing missionary efforts in Michigan from the 1830s-‘50s referring to how many souls a missionary saved.

The auction will also include materials from the Ernie Scott Michigan Postal Archive, which has 1,245 items depicting Michigan’s territorial history. Whitford said what makes this collection unusual is the correspondence with first- person accounts on some of them. One is an 1840 letter to a soldier stationed at Fort Brady on Mackinac Island from his sister. There’s also an 1843 letter sent from Manchester, Mich., inquiring about the cost of housing at the New York State Lunatic Asylum (later the Utica State Hospital). In one particular letter posted from Marengo, Mich., Nathan Price writes to his brother in New York in 1849: “Considerable excitement prevails in respect to the California Gold and about one hundred are preparing to start from this county as soon as the 10th of April for the Gold Region.”

Many first-person letters detail the trials and tribulation of early settlers, celebrate births and record deaths and tell of crops and clearing the land. Typically the letters are two to four pages. Other letters of interest to collectors are from early Michigan political leaders and letters referring to slavery, slaves and “Indians.”

Whitford said the Hayes collection would be nearly impossible to compile today.

“So few exist because, like today’s ad fliers, people threw them out,” Whitford said.

Michigan Postal History Advertising Covers Auction

6 p.m. Saturday Dec. 13 Comfort Inn, Okemos Conference Center 2187 University Park Drive, Okemos Lots can be viewed in advance Thursday and Friday by appointment (517) 694-0556,

cawhitford@aol.com