[SFDXA] A Different type Of Stamp

[Bill]

 From Kappy WA4WTG and John W6BXQ...

Here is an article about a different type of stamp.
http://www.radioworld.com/article/ekko-stamps-recall-%E2%80%9Cthe-miracle%E2%80%9D-/270136

/Story:
If you had lived in the early 1920s, you probably would have known at 
least one family who sold their icebox or other household essential to 
raise money for a wireless set. Radio was miraculous and intoxicating, 
and people rushed to be among the first to experience the impossible.

Ironically, early broadcasters had little idea who, if anyone, was 
listening to their stations. The first AM broadcasters believed 
(correctly) that their nighttime signals reached huge tracts of the 
country and enveloped a quasi-national audience. But without Nielsen 
Audio or Facebook, stations could rely only on the occasional postal 
letter to gauge their far-flung listenership.

To help broadcasters understand their audiences and attract sponsors, 
the EKKO Company of Chicago whipped up a clever gimmick in 1924. They 
imprinted colorful stamps with call signs and sold them to the 
respective broadcasters; at the same time, they sold stamp albums to the 
public. The albums included a place for each station's stamp and offered 
simple instructions for submitting reception reports. When a station 
received a report from a listener, it would return an attractive EKKO 
stamp, which the listener would mount in his official album.

The result was twofold: The first broadcast-band QSLs were born, and, as 
the EKKO stamp fad caught on, stations began to understand who was 
actually listening.

The EKKO Company chose the American Bank Note Company to print their 
stamps. Similar in size and quality to U.S. postage stamps, the 
intaglio-printed EKKOs featured a perched bald eagle flanked by two 
radio towers emitting stylized lightning bolts. In addition to a 
station's call sign, each stamp bore the phrase "Verified Reception Stamp."

During 1922 alone, the number of AM stations grew from 67 to more than 
500, and President Warren G. Harding installed the first radio in the 
White House. By the mid-1920s, broadcast-band DXing was a rapidly 
growing pastime and EKKO stamp collecting had become wildly popular.

But not all DXers embraced EKKO stamps. Radio News magazine, a popular 
resource for radio hobbyists of the day, published a tongue-in-cheek 
article about the new fad in its February 1925 issue:

"Be sure you have the little old stamp before telling how the coast came 
in so loudly that you had to throw a sofa pillow over the phones to keep 
them from waking the baby," chided the article. "The Society for the 
Prevention of Useless Falsehood in Radio will get you if you don't watch 
out. Some stern-visaged individual is liable to step up, throw back his 
coat and make visible the badge of the society, and upon the authority 
of same, demand that you immediately show your stamp."

While the article lampooned the stamp fad, the magazine's cover paid 
homage to the early adopters of the EKKO Company's scheme, featuring the 
colorful stamps of WTAM, WBT, WHO, KFKB and others.

One radio historian has counted more than 800 stations that participated 
in the EKKO stamp program during the 1920s, including broadcasters in 
Canada, Mexico and Cuba. The EKKO fad soon bred imitators, the most 
famous of which was the P.M. Bryant Company. Bryant sold both albums and 
stamps directly to the public. Once a station was heard, listeners 
needed only to paste the proper stamp into their albums; broadcasters 
were completely cut out of the process.

After the EKKO stamp hobby had taken hold, several stations opted to 
print their own, custom verification stamps. The EKKO Company often 
showed their displeasure by excluding those stations from subsequent 
editions of the EKKO album.

Before the EKKO stamp craze was extinguished by the Great Depression of 
the early 1930s, it's likely that many tens of thousands of EKKO stamps 
were distributed throughout the United States. But where are they all today?

The few EKKO stamps that have survived are held in private collections 
or traded on eBay.

"At any one time, there's maybe a dozen serious collectors," said Bob 
Lucier, who has been buying and selling EKKO stamps on eBay for more 
than 10 years "They're a fringe item for sure."

Today, rarer EKKO stamps (from stations who distributed only a few) 
fetch several hundred dollars, while the more common call signs often 
can be purchased on eBay for $5 to $10. Large EKKO collections 
occasionally surface on eBay. Lucier purchased a half-full EKKO album 
for $4,700.

More than 90 years ago, tuning in an AM radio station located a few 
states away was a singular thrill. It was something difficult to 
believe, clearly worthy of a souvenir. For those of us born with the 
"radio gene," nothing has changed --- we're still awestruck by wireless 
communication. For everyone else, there are still a few EKKO stamps 
around to help you remember the miracle.

Philip Mulivor, CBRE, AMD, teaches electronics technology at Remington 
College in Cleveland///