Selling First Day Covers

There thousands of First Covers serviced every year. What makes a FD valuable? Early first days from the 1920 do have value the great majority of FD's from the 1950's with exceptions have very little value. What makes FD's valuable are the dates, the topic and the cachet maker. Hot topicals such as baseball FD's from 1939 with cachet command high prices. A cachet is the art work that is related to the stamp and event it portrays. There are a number of famous cachet makers. Artcraft and Artmaster printed cachets are very common and provide the bulk of cachets used by dealers who service FD's. These FD's sell today from 50c to several dollars each. Early FD's from the 1930 and back many times do not have cachets but are still desirable and many have very high values. Mellone's Specialized Cachet Catalogues cover most of the know cachets from the 1950's up. The Planty catalogues covers the early years. They show pictures of cachets and a value. The addressing of modern FD's by pen or typewritten reduces the value. Many of the early ones will be addressed. I recently noted that one of largest dealers is currently offering 20c for cachet'd and unaddressed FD's. 15c for addressed and 10c for FD's without cachets. UN covers are very similar to US FD's.