Lot
4324 E
Franklin W. Brooks, New York, Liberty Paid Reply Card Essays Collection, a remarkable collection encompassing all facets of the Brooks second series design using Liberty vignettes, including La (4 in both colors - watermarked and unwatermarked), Lb (3 incl. unlisted dark blue), Lc (all 5 listed), Ld (all 6 listed), Le (3), Lg (3), LA, N (36 different from various subtypes including one specimen), NAb (1), NAbS (1), O (1), P (two different), Q (two different), R (two different), some toning as usual with overall quality better than the norm with better selected examples, F.-V.F. USPCC No. MR1E-L, LA, M, MA, $12,750.
AN OUTSTANDING COLLECTION OF THE BROOKS LIBERTY PAID REPLY CARD ESSAYS.
The second design essays, with which Franklin W. Brooks waged his one man campaign against Congress, comprise by far the most numerous group of essays in the entire postal card field. Most of the types of proposed reply cards produced bearing the first design of essay stamp used by Mr. Brooks are also known in the second design, although two types were excluded: cards requiring the same stamp to be twice canceled, and triple folded cards. One new type was added (MR1E-O). Numerically, by far the greatest quantities of these cards are concentrated in three of the types (MR1E-M, MR1E-MB, and MR1E-N) while most of the other types are quite scarce. Unlike any of the other patented cards submitted to the Post Office Department for its consideration this stamp design was printed from a carefully engraved die, with both die and printing being the skilled workmanship of an established bank note company. Unquestionably this method required a much greater financial outlay than most patentees desired to expend, but Mr. Brooks felt confident that ultimately his patent would be accepted, and he was financially able, and also willing, to spend money to further this purpose.
The National Bank Note Co., which still retained the master die for the first issued postal card design (S1 as issued in 1873) even though they no longer had any contract with the Post Office Department for producing stamps, transferred the vignette of Liberty as on the first postal card to form the central design of the essay die prepared for Mr. Brooks. A new, upright, rectangular frame was designed for this vignette, sufficiently unlike the escalloped scroll work used on S1 to eliminate any possible charge of counterfeiting or other improper usage, but at the same time sufficiently near the general appearance of the regularly issued card so recently in use that connections were readily made in the minds of the Congressmen, business associates and others whom Mr. Brooks contacted in an effort to forward the acceptance of one of his patented types of cards.
Realized: $6,000