CoL49/AtD: It's about stamps

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

"Someday, son, this 'awl' will be yours. . . ."

               'Yet she knew, head down, stumbling along over the 
               cinderbed and its old sleepers, there was still that other 
               chance. That it was all true.'

The theme is disinhertance. All those folks on the other side of the tracks are 
among the disinherited. The author most likely would not have been 
thinking/writing about the disinherited unless he knew, from experience, 
from family, from his 'non-inheritance'. What was this inheritance? Who lost 
and who won?

               'He might himself have discovered The Tristero, and encrypted 
               that in the will, buying into just enough to be sure she'd find 
               it.'

          Frederick C. Tanner, Cheif Deputy Attorney General in charge of the 
          New York City offices, announced yesterday that he had instituted suit 
          against the brokerage firm of Raymond, Pynchon & Co. of 111 
          Broadway for amounts aggregating $180,000 representing fines for using 
          canceled stock tax stamps.                                      
                                           
http://tinyurl.com/24ngaz

The link provided is of an item from the  January 1, 1911 edition of the New 
York Times. At the time, Pynchon & Company was a thriving brokerage firm.
http://tinyurl.com/3dv6os

This item came from a glossary of postal terms:

          Postal tax stamp - a stamp used to raise funds for a specific purpose. 
          Though not valid for postage, it has been required on mail at certain 
          times.

http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=3&cmd=1&letter=p

When thinking of 'postal stamps' as part of the estate of the director of a 
multi-national corporation we are thinking, most likely, of philately, the work 
of a stamp collector. But what if there is another meaning for 'postage 
stamps'? This is from the glossary:

          Postal savings stamp - a savings stamp redeemable as a credit to 
          postal savings accounts. The purchaser filled a book with the savings 
          stamps, which could be redeemed for a certificate. The Postal Stamp 
          Savings program spanned 1911 to 1970.

          Postal Savings System - a system for saving money which the Post 
          Office Department operated from 1911 to 1967. Begun as a way to 
          encourage individuals to create financial savings accounts, 
          immigrants found it particularly useful since it resembled similar 
          systems in their native countries. The system reached its peak in 
          1947. In 1967, unclaimed deposits were turned over to the U.S. 
          Treasury Department. Some money was kept for future claims, but 
          legislation ended all claims after July 13, 1985.

On the one hand, the stamps in The Crying of Lot 49 appear to be a part of
Oedipa's wild goose chase through Inverarity's properties. On the other hand, 
they may be the inheritance itself or, seeing as Inverarity's Corporate entity 
continues to exist and seemingly flourish, it could be the key to quelling 
future litigation, thus the unusual degree of interest in these stamps.

This site:

http://www.arago.si.edu/

Is the on-line version of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. You will 
find that most of the information concerning postal systems in 
The Crying of Lot 49 is true, and much of that material is also in 
Against the Day. Here's some juicy examples:

          Pneumatic tubes - a transport system that carried mail under city 
          streets. The service, which began in 1893 in Philadelphia, used 
          canisters that could carry up to six hundred letters each and 
          travel at an average of thirty-five miles per hour.

          Bogus stamp - a fictitious, stamp-like label created for sale to 
          collectors, also known as a 'Cinderella'. Bogus issues include 
          labels for nonexistent countries or postal administrations; 
          nonexistent values appended to regularly issued sets; and 
          issues for nations or similar entities without postal systems. 
          The more contemporary 'stamp art' can fall into this 
          category but often leans toward lewd exhibitionism.

          Cachet - a printed, embossed, or hand struck inscription, with or 
          without illustration, impressed usually on the left side of an 
          envelope face or postal packet to advertise the special 
          circumstances under which the item was mailed, perhaps first or 
          last day of issue, first flight, or any other commemorative situation. 
          Cachets can be produced by the postal administration or by 
          private parties and applied independent of postal authority.

          CIA invert - term applied to a U.S. stamp featuring a candlestick 
          holder that was found upside down by CIA employees when 
          buying stamps at their local USPS post office

          Cigarette tube stamp - tax receipt paid on hollow tubes of cigarette 
          paper to which small mouthpieces were attached, for those who 
          made their own cigarettes, 1919-1933

          Guerrilla stamp - a stamp issued by guerrilla forces to frank their 
          correspondence. Use of such stamps was common in Taiwan (1895), 
          Philippines (1898), South Africa (1899-1902), Ireland (1922-23), 
          China (1929- ), and South Vietnam (1963-76).

          Gutter snipe - a mis-cut of the gutter that leaves part of a stamp 
          attached to the full gutter. Gutter snipes are regarded as 'freaks', 
          not errors.

          Hotel stamp - a local stamp issued by a remotely located hotel to 
          pay for delivery of guests' mail to the nearest post office. Some 
          hotels had their own post offices.

          Inverted Jenny - a misprinted U.S. postage stamp showing an 
          inverted image of a blue airplane. The error occurred on the 
          24-cent airmail stamp of 1918. Only one sheet of one hundred 
          inverted center stamps was sold across the post office counter, 
          and no other examples have been discovered by the public. 
          The image attached to this record shows inverts from that single 
          sheet, which were reunited during an exhibit at the National Postal 
          Museum in the summer of 1996. For other information, photographs, 
          and/or articles pertaining to this stamp, 
          please refer to U.S. Design File C3.

This site is loaded with information concerning alternate postal systems. If you
browse through the 'U's, you will find listings of stamps for many independent 
postal systems delivering mail during the times covered in The Crying of Lot 
49 and Against the Day:

http://postage.20m.com/c0002350.htm

The 'Bavarian Illumanati' conspiracy theory is given much play in TRP's work 
and gets pretty much free reign in Mason & Dixon and Against the Day. That 
notion of the control of money determining history is also in 'Zeitgeist the 
Movie', and many of the same paranoid conspiracies found in that film echo 
conspiracies that emerge in Pynchon's novels. Whether or not Pynchon 
'Believes' in these theories is beside the point. The simple fact that he 
repeatedly incorporates these ideas in his work is the point. If one goes
by the 'B.I.' theory, Pynchon & Company was part of that system in 1911.
I believe the key to de-crypting Thomas Pynchon's writings can be found in 
in the rise and sudden drastic fall of 'Pynchon & Company'.

http://tinyurl.com/2xpzgc

http://tinyurl.com/29v9ca

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/inferno.htm

http://www.thesatirist.com/books/Vineland.html