Dear Sir,

The postcard pictured as Figure 1 on page 460 of The United States Specialist, October, 2010 [Kansas City Roulettes] brought back memories of a hot and dry afternoon in Placerville, California, in the mid-1980s.  My wife Jan & I operated a stamp store in Citrus Heights, California at the time and were visiting an elderly couple in Placerville who had a variety of stamp “stuff” to offer.  Our conversation soon centered around an antique shop the couple had operated in the Santa Cruz, California area in the 1950s and 1960s.  The husband had an interest in United States postal history and his wife explained that he always selected one item to keep from any purchase if it interested him, selling the remaining duplicates in the shop.  She offered a small accumulation of late 19th and early 20th century material.  In that group was a single 1¢ Kansas City Roulette tied on a postcard addressed to the senders wife in Illinois!  We recall the card, who would not (!), and it, or one from the same correspondence, is the card pictured.  We purchased the collection and first offered the Kansas City Roulette at WESTPEX, San Francisco that Spring.

The “rest of the story” occurred at that show when Ralph Steinkellner, a San Francisco postal history dealer (now deceased), saw our card on display on Friday afternoon and commented “see you tomorrow.”  On Saturday, Ralph showed up with three other Kansas City Roulette cards, from the same correspondence, with messages which we recall led to the conclusion that the sender was a traveling salesman, writing home!  When we asked Ralph where his cards came from, he commented that he had purchased a collection from a couple from Chicago who had retired in the San Francisco Bay area, and they had found the cards in an antique shop in the Santa Cruz area!

We sold our card to another Bay Area dealer at the show.  We moved from California several years later and Ralph passed away after we left.  Somewhere, out there in “Philatelyland,” are three more examples!  We are not aware of the disposition of Ralph’s inventory.  Happy hunting!

In closing, it’s stories like this that confirm a short bit of advice from Kellogg Stryker, with whom I worked at Gimbles’ in 1961, “There will always be items to find as there are always items being lost!”

Sincerely,
Chuck McFarlane