Farley v. Philatelists

The members of the Norfolk (Va.) Philatelic Society met, last fortnight, in a blaze of indignation. Beneath their very noses a local dealer was flaunting a sheet of 200 Mother's Day stamps, unperforated, ungummed, and autographed by James Aloysius Farley. Rumor was that the dealer had insured his $6 worth of stamps for $20,000. The philatelists drafted a hot letter accusing the Postmaster General of slipping his friends sheets of unperforated commemorative stamps which promptly "assumed speculative value 10,000 times greater than their original value." Then they dispatched the letter to a famed fellow stamp-collector in the White House.

Last week President Roosevelt passed it along to a highly embarrassed Postmaster General. As best he could, Mr. Farley explained that he had autographed five sheets of Mother's Day stamps, unperforated because his pen caught in the perforations. Four of the sheets he presented to President & Mrs. Roosevelt, Secretary Ickes, Louis McHenry Howe. The fifth he sent to a friend in Norfolk. "That," said he, "was probably a mistake."

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