Saturday, May 21, 2011

Philatelic News: Pictorials in the Berkshires

Announced in the Philately section of the most recent Postal Bulletin: Two post offices in western Massachusetts are hosting pictorial cancellations for 30 days. I visited both post offices the first week of this year.

Chester, MA


The quaint and photogenic town of Chester, along the banks of a small river that flows through a valley in the Berkshires, is hosting a postmark commemorating 170 years of railroading in Chester:



To mail for this postmark, send philatelic material along with SASE to the address above.

North Adams, MA
A great vacation spot in the Berkshires, North Adams was revitalized a decade ago when a consortium of curators decided to occupy the abandoned Sprague Electric factory and found the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). It's a wonderful museum with changing exhibits every year. A featured exhibit occupies a football field-sized factory floor room. I'm not a fan of all contemporary art, but this place is always worth it.

The North Adams post office is featuring a pictorial commemorating its 100th anniversary. Below, the office and the cancel, which can be mailed for by sending philatelic material and an SASE to the address listed.





See the resemblance? (Despite the fact that the postmark was drawn from a different corner of the building.) I particularly enjoy the old truck to the left and the new truck to the right of the building.

Bonus:
Fairfield, Ohio, the fantastic post office covered in this GP blog entry from November, is has its own pictorial beginning May 31.

1 comment:

  1. That must be the 100th anniversary of the North Adams post office building itself. The post office dates from July 26, 1813, the city of North Adams from March 22, 1895, and the town of North Adams from April 16, 1878. Adams had already been a town for 100 years when North Adams broke off.

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