1. Among those old post cards with the 1 cent & 2 cent stamps; the old envelopes with the 2 & 3 cent stamps, etc. of 1900s - 1940s, watch for the post marks, usually heavy, black, and round cancellations having the initials R.P.O. on them as they are the ones that were cancelled aboard the Railroad Post Offices located in the baggage and post office areas in the front car of the train sectioned off for that business. As the train traveled, the Postal Clerks aboard, sorted, cancelled, and otherwise processed the many cards, letters, packages being transported along the way. Some specialists among the philatelists collect cancellations, and among the various kinds of cancellations are the R.P.O. types; then during War there were the various A.P.O. cancellations or other kinds of designations for overseas mail which distributed mail for various branches of the service. F.P.O. or Field Post Offices. You may very well find these among your nostalgia, and not realize how that piece of mail traveled, or got processed. When airmail got started, there were sometimes cancellations for those means of sending mail also, beside the special stamp(s) used. The Special Delivery service had special stamps for that service, and special cancellations used. 2. In the 20s - 40s era we had lamp bulbs which oftentime carried the word MAZDA either stamped into the metal base, or otherwise printed with those letters. When I was a member of the Everett Toastmaster's International of Everett, WA., I met a ham (amateur radio) friend there who had worked for General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y. and it was he who explained to me about Mazda. Mazda lamps were not the brand name of the lamps, but rather the name of the very precise Testing Labs. division of General Electric that stamped all lamp bulbs that had been sent through a very thorough, precise testing procedure before they could be stamped as a Mazda bulb. They were put through all sorts of rigorous tests, as to longevity, vibration tests, brightness tests, tests of the filament materials used, some called thoriated tungsten, etc. All this was news to me as I had thought it was a brand name. I did note that they were the premium bulbs to buy as they were very long lasting and dependable. I recall seeing the Mazda designation on some Christmas bulbs early on. I asked my friend at the time ( in the 1950s) why we no longer could get Mazda lamps when we buy GE bulbs. His explanation was that this was a very costly operation and the processing became prohibitive to continue. It seems that it was economics, and then changes in the materials used that rendered it unnecessary, i.e. the inevitable = C H A N G E ! As an aside, here, I would like to highly recommend anyone interested in doing so to join a Toastmasters' or Toastmistress' International as an experience that will probably be better than any college coarse you might take, or might have taken, at least the Everett one was for me. I met some of the finest people I have known at Everett Toastmasters' International. They came from all walks of life - big bugs in industry, you name it - and some had speech impediments, and all sorts of quirks among them, but we were all in the "same boat" there - there was never any ridicule, but complete support and confidence building. I have always felt that it was time very well spent as I pursued my profession. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in bettering themselves. A most inspiring experience! Carroll, Snohomish. * * * 30 * * * Good Hunting! ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]