This Art Craft First Day Cover features the 6¢ Edgar Lee Masters commemorative stamp issued by the United States on August 22, 1970. The cover bears a clear Petersburg, Illinois postmark—the poet’s birthplace—and includes the official “First Day of Issue” inscription alongside the stamp.
Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950) is best remembered for his groundbreaking 1915 work Spoon River Anthology, a collection of free-verse epitaphs that revealed the hidden lives of a fictional Midwestern town. The stamp and cachet honor his contributions to American poetry and his influence on 20th-century literature.
The striking black-and-white cachet reproduces a formal portrait of Masters, lists several of his major titles including Spoon River Anthology, Songs and Satires, and Along the Illinois, and displays the Art Craft imprint at lower left. A small reproduction of the stamp appears in the upper right corner.
The cover is addressed to Mr. Leonard G. Feinen in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, a suburban community just west of New York City that was home to many mid-century stamp collectors.
A clean, well-centered example ideal for collectors of literary figures, Illinois postal history, or Art Craft cachets.
