
RAY CHARLES
Released to collectors May 16, 2014, along with
Rosa Parks, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Indianapolis 500, and Walter Cronkite
$23

BEVIL ISSUE
SCOTT#
CATEGORY
CANCELLED
LOCATION
PAINTED
MAIN LOT
ARTIST’S PROOFS
AFDCS VARIETY
ISSUE TOTAL SIZE
I have several topical events documenting the passing of famous people, like Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, Cowboys coach Tom Landry, Neil Armstrong, Marlon Brando, and several more. What we're discovering is, if I let these great issues sit on the shelf long enough, there's a good chance the USPS will eventually release a stamp of them. Such was the case with Ray Charles. This is the first topical event / first day of issue I have painted...maybe more to come.
This is a first for Bevil Cachets...a dual cancellation honoring the last living day (topical event) and a first day of issue (FDOI). These covers were first cancelled in Albany, Georgia on June 10, 2004. I affixed 3 stamps to the envelope for that cancel. One of the stamps is a 22 cent Georgia Statehood stamp and the other two are 8.4 cent stamps featuring a piano and the caption “Peace Unites A Nation Like Harmony In Music”. Well, life moved on and the envelopes stayed tucked away for over 9 years. Then one day the USPS announced their release of a Ray Charles stamp to be issued on September 23, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. So what you see before you is that, an unplanned, yet complementary, combination of stamps and cancellations. Ray Charles Robinson was born in Albany, Georgia in 1930. His family was poor, so poor in fact that he would recall, “Even compared to other blacks, we were on the bottom of the ladder looking up at everyone else. Nothing below us except the ground.” Ray began losing his sight at the age of five and went completely blind by the age of seven due to glaucoma. But not before witnessing the death of his younger brother George. Sadly, his brother drowned in the family’s laundry tub at the age of four. Ray always felt a sense of guilt, although he was just a child himself and could not save his brother.
Read the article in its entirety in the May 2014
Bevil newsletter, which accompanies the cover.
547
4807
Topical Event / FDOI
June 10, 2004 / Sept. 23, 2013
Albany, GA 31701 / LA, CA 90052
April 2014
175
10
1
186


"You may be blind," she told him, "but you’re not stupid; you have to do things for yourself, no one else will do them for you."
The Musical Genius With No Boundaries