Nostalgia & History > Sharing Someone's American Freedom Train Collection

Somebody, I don't know who, put a lot of effort into amassing a nearly-complete collection of commemorative covers with postmarks from the American Freedom Train's 1975-76 bicentennial tour of the U.S.

Until a few years ago I had a couple of random AFT covers, and then I spotted a collection of 134 for sale on eBay for $50. I swooped on it.

I have no clue who put the collection together, but I suspect they're long dead and I got it from whoever was liquidating their estate. It was a great score,

Last year, I started sharing on Facebook the individual covers on the 50th anniversary of the given city.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first stop of 1976, at Santa Barbara,

This morning I decided it would be easier to photograph them in one session, so I set up a tripod and got to work. It didn't take long, and now I can share them with little effort going forward.

By my calculation, I am only missing three: June 1975 at Cincinnati; June 1975 at Archbold, Ohio; and June 1975 at Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I'm glad this collection gets to see the light of day online.

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Interesting group with the postmarks.  But out of curiousity, why are the called 'covers' instead of mailing envelopes - which is what they appear to be?

Rich

From my understanding a "cover" is the term used to describe the front of something being mailed, the portion with the stamp and address. 

I'm not really a stamp collector, but from what I've seen the term cover is used widely in the world of philately.

Hopefully for your enjoyment here are three photos of 4449 and the AFT in Santa Barbara California. The first tw shots taken when two of SP's GP35s were switching the 4449 and the display cars into their positons for the several days that they would be there on December 31st, 1975. The last shot of 4449 at night on January 1st, 1976 with the engine and display cars in position.

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Fantastic collection! As an employee of the American Freedom Train I am wondering if that was done by another employee? 

My suggestion is to donate the AFT covers to the Oregon Railroad Heritage Foundation.  I donated all m,y pictures amd aFT Memorbillia to them.