My name is Chip Wiley, son of Tom & Rose Wiley, the creators of Gateway Stamp Company. I get older & slightly blemished items from the main Gateway inventory and sell it on eBay. Most items have a starting reserve price that can be 90% to 95% BELOW the listed retail price on GatewayStamp.com. Blemishes on each item are disclosed to the best of my ability. I often get suggestions from my customers
that my standards are too high and some of the blemishes that I list are not significant enough to be considered blemishes by collectors. At the same time, having a customer find an unacceptable blemish that was not disclosed in the auction occurs less than once a year. I also offer a generous combined shipping policy. Customers can withhold payment to combine shipping of items for up to 15 days. Gateway Stamp Company is the ambassador to the world for authentic autographs from some of the world's most prominent sports and political figures. Gateway has provided collectors over 700,000 personal autographs over the last 40 years, but we have never considered ourselves "autograph dealers." Even though we are a "stamp company," we have seldom dealt in stamps, even though that was our original plan. Instead, you are now being introduced to what has become one of the world's most unique collections and best kept secrets in autograph collecting. Gateway has combined the very best in art, color photographs, history, and personal autographs, resulting in a fantastic series of over 1,000 full-color silk cachets envelopes, providing joyous memories and value to thousands of satisfied customers throughout North America, in some homes overseas, and even some ships at sea. Gateway's vast list of clients providing authentic autographs began with former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder and Hall of Famer Lou Brock. Gateway created a set of envelopes postmarked in the city where he tied and broke Ty Cobb's all-time stolen base record, which was to be only a one-time idea. Gateway asked Lou to sign only 100 envelopes, but he countered our proposal with the offer to sign 2,500. When advertised in THE SPORTING NEWS, Gateway's full-color silk cachet envelopes postmarked August 29, 1977, in San Diego, CA, and personally AUTOGRAPHED by Lou Brock, became an immediate smash. Discovered quite by accident, the response to our first issue taught us that sports and autograph collectors around the United States were receptive to a new form of art, history and collectability - the full-color silk cachet envelope. WHAT ARE FULL-COLOR SILK CACHETS? The dictionary defines the word "cachet" as a message or design on an envelope marking a postal event. In our case, "full-color silk" refers to the very delicate material into which the very finest in original art and action photography are printed, bringing to life the whole purpose of the envelope. Once printed, each silk is applied BY HAND very carefully and lovingly. In essence, every cachet envelope becomes a hand crafted work of art. Our original head artists, Mr. Bill Perry & Mr. Bill Wilson were among the world's best portrayers of human likeness. We now use another great artist Mr. Gary Thomas, I think you will agree that his work is outstanding in every way. Then we use B. Scott Forst, our stadium artist, has few peers preserving detailed architecture of America's ballparks. His stadium work appears in every World Series set (1978-1996), All-Star editions, and Stadium editions produced by Gateway. (SEE BASEBALL CATALOG, Stadium Issues listed after player issues). The vast majority, however, of Gateway's silks are actual game photographs. Being in the right place at the right time, Gateway has captured hundreds of record-breaking events and memorable moments, including no-hitters, historic swings of the bat, such as Pete Rose's all-time hit record in Cincinnati, Reggie Jackson's 500th home run, and Kirk Gibson's climactic 1988 World Series homer. Our full-color action photos preserve and deliver the real sense of history, along with the fluid writing skill of Gateway's editors. WHY POSTMARKS? The key to EVERY Gateway project is the postmark. As avid stamp collectors, we can tellanyone THE BEST WAY TO MARK A DATE IN HISTORY IS WITH A POSTMARK. In order to capture any date in history, our stamped envelopes MUST be in Postal Service hands by MIDNIGHT of the date involved, or we forever lose access to the all-important postmark. Many times a representative of Gateway has boarded a flight from St. Louis, stamping envelopes on the go, in order to reach a city's post office before midnight, especially where no-hitters occurred. Some we missed, and others were acquired with the feverish dedication of far-off Gateway customers, often working with less than a hour's notice. Gateway has always tried to acquire enough postmarks to provide every customer a record of every major event. Sometimes, however, short notice has restricted our ability to acquire sufficient numbers of postmarks to satisfy every customer, resulting in true scarcities and some exciting auctions. Not only are postmarks the most official means of dating a Gateway envelope, the rules governing the granting of postmarks GUARANTEE that NO Gateway issue can EVER be reproduced, reprinted, or re-issued in any way. In some emergency cases,we have used Pitney Bowes cancellations for dating purposes.
