My late brother Neil was very smart and talented. But I find it doubtful that he actually wrote a letter – in exemplary cursive handwriting, no less – to the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) in late 1955, when he was 3½ years old.

And while my sister Nancy, who was born a year and a half after Neil, was and continues to be very smart and talented, I also think it highly unlikely that she too wrote UNPA.

But my late father’s stamp albums has a letter Neil supposedly sent to UNPA as well as UNPA’s response to a letter my sister sent them.

Neil wrote: “Would you please send me an unused Tenth Anniversary Sheet? I’ve enclosed fifteen cents (15¢) and a self stamped addressed envelope. Thank you, Neil Evan.” The letter is mounted on a page with an envelope, dated January 18, 1956 that is part of today’s #stampoftheday – which seems especially fitting because today is the 20th anniversary of my father’s death in 2001. He died a few days before George W. Bush was inaugurated; I often wondered if he saw what was coming and decided not to stick around.

Since Neil Evan’s envelope says “Philatelic Mail. Please do not bend or use cord;” it presumably contained a souvenir sheet, originally issued on October 24, 1956. (One of those is another part of today’s #stampoftheday.) My sister – who apparently wrote as Miss Nancy Luberoff (not Nancy Lynn) apparently wasn’t so fortunate.

There is an envelope addressed to Nancy postmarked February 2, 1955 (that is also part of today’s #stampoftheday) and a letter written on UN stationary dated 2 February 1956 informing her: “Enclosed, herewith please find UN stamps in the amount of 15¢ which you sent us for a souvenir sheet. Please be advised that we cannot accommodate you with this item as the supply at this time is completely exhausted.”

I suspect my sister might tell you this is but one of the many times that my brother got, or got away with, something that she didn’t get or get away with. (I wasn’t on the scene yet so, as was often the case with my brother and sister, I’ll just stay out of it.)

All this begs the question of why my seemingly-precocious older siblings wrote the UN and even sending it money? The answer can be found in “United Nations Tenth Anniversary Souvenir Sheet,” a statement from the UN, issued on October 27, 1954, that’s also in my father’s albums.

“The UN Postal Administration announces with regret that due to the exceptionally heavy demand for the Tenth Anniversary souvenir sheet issued on October 24, 1955, the supply for the sheets on hand proved to be insufficient to cover the orders received,” it states. The announcement went on to note that UNPA “very much regrets that so many people were disappointed” and added that “steps are being taken” to get additional stamps that would be used to fulfill outstanding mail orders postmarked by October 24. (No late ballots here!) UNPA also announced that at some point in the future, it would make a limited number of sheets available for sale at the UN and added “no further orders” for the sheets or first day covers “are being accepted.”

Clearly overwhelmed UNPA officials also wrote: “In this difficult situation, the UN Postal Administration asks the indulgence of customers and would very much appreciate their patience and good-will.” They concluded by noting, “Please do not write in if you fail to receive your order immediately. All orders will be processed as soon as stock is available, and mailed out as soon as possible.”

Reading between the lines (and in a perhaps-maudlin reference to the recent assault on the US Capital), I find myself imagining what could have been the “Great UN Postal Stamp Riot of 1955.” Perhaps, in that alternative reality, the UN was threatened by hordes of rampaging internationalist philatelists, some of the armed with letter openers, postage meters, and postage scales.

But I digress … So Back to the story. In mid-November 1955, the UNPA announced that a limited supply of the sheets would be available at the UN, “for purchase by those collectors in the New York area” who had come to the UN to buy the sheets on October 24. The announcement added, “one,—or possibly two sheets only will be sold to each customer.”

There’s no record in the album that the UN ever announced that people could buy the sheets by mail. But apparently my father thought it was worth a shot and so he must have “urged” Neil and Nancy to write in and also to send money—perhaps what they had gotten from the tooth fairy?—for the apparently valuable sheets.

I don’t know how he ultimately got them, but his UN albums do include five separate copies of the commemorative sheets. Two are free-standing souvenir sheets, one clearly labeled as a first printing. The other three are attached to first-day envelopes; two of them addressed to my father, the other to someone else in Stamford, CT, where my parents were living at the time.

So as my mother would say many times about many things she bought over the years, my father apparently “didn’t want the hoarders to get” the valuable stamps. And as for Nancy, who apparently failed in her mission, I guess, as the Rolling Stones might have sung, “you can’t always get what your father wanted to get in your name.”

Be well, stay safe, don’t let the hoarders get whatever it is you want, fight for justice, and work for peace.