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Jacques Minkus WW II era unused 3-5/8" x 6-1/2" cacheted cover

One of the hobby’s major periodicals once called Jacques Minkus “The Merchant Prince of Stamp Collecting,” which is about as apt a title as anyone could use to describe one of the most amazing commercial philatelists in the history of our hobby.

Emigrating to the United States from Germany in 1929 after a brief career as a typesetter and publisher, Minkus settled in the New York City area and decided to go into the stamp business. His powers of persuasion must have been formidable for, in 1931, he had convinced Bernard Gimbel of the famed Gimbel’s Department Store at 33rd and Broadway in Manhattan to allow him to open a small stamp counter in the rear of the store’s ground floor. From there he sold stamps and cacheted covers of his own design and began to ponder developing and producing an entire product line.

One might say, “...and the rest is history.” Minkus was a promoter of the first order. By the mid-1930s, his “stamp counter” had been transformed into a whole stamp department and, by the early 1940s, it dominated the store’s entire main floor. At one time, he employed more than 40 professional philatelists to serve the thousands of stamp collectors who patronized his Gimbel’s department. And by the early 1950s he had expanded his stamp operations to large sections of 38 other major department stores nationwide.

The cover is complete and in VERY GOOD or better condition with some overall light wear.