Yeah, I think if he had we wouldn’t be here trying to find him.

Yeah, I think if he had we wouldn’t be here trying to find him.

Right, I think most of us agree that Z was pretty controlled/controlling in his activities. Asking someone to mail the letters introduces a lot of "what-ifs," which I doubt he was comfortable with.

Traveller1st — can you tell, from that nice piece of art you did, whether the stamps are perfed on two sides only, or all four sides, consistently? I’m sure it’s hard with the multiple generations of copying, I can’t see a thing when I look.

Yeah, I think if he had we wouldn’t be here trying to find him.

Right, I think most of us agree that Z was pretty controlled/controlling in his activities. Asking someone to mail the letters introduces a lot of "what-ifs," which I doubt he was comfortable with.

Traveller1st — can you tell, from that nice piece of art you did, whether the stamps are perfed on two sides only, or all four sides, consistently? I’m sure it’s hard with the multiple generations of copying, I can’t see a thing when I look.

i can’t see much of anything either. there are a few where it looks like you can see the perf at the top/bottom but that could just be me seeing things.

I don’t know about consistently but there appears to be more evidence to suggest that they were mostly likely either from book or singles. I’m thinking books is the most probable.

Here’s a few examples that I feel show this. The Belli one is a no-brainer as it’s a ‘cluster’ like the example Up2 posted earlier but the others I’ve picked here show perforations on edges other than the adjoining one indicating they were from a book, I believe.

his penchant for posting multiples together also leads me to believe they’re from a book. it would take a lot more effort than he shows elsewhere to stick four stamps separately in alignment, versus taking four off of a book page and pasting them as one block. even on the envelopes where the stamps are at an angle, multiples are always at the same angle.

Bought from vending machines in a book, pasted in as multiples. I like.
Interesting that the MO with the stamps can be directly related between ’66 and later letters. I like that.

Actually I think the book theory is accurate. The one cent Jefferson stamps he used were the ones sold in combination with the Franklin D. Roosevelt stamps in a book.

I had posted this elsewhere, but it fits well here. I apologize for some of the repetitions of information but I think his stamping habits lead to some interesting questions, and I am going to add a few edits here that I will label that are different from my other post as I did learn and checked on a few things here. EDIT: And I do agree better scans of the envelopes would confirm if they were sheet stamps (clearly not Coil) or book as explained by Texas 21. *I found a book with 40 stamps- 32 6¢ FDRs and 8 1¢ Jeffersons for $2 and could have come from a vending machine.

I do also include several non-confirmed Z communications that I generally think were from him.

I have recently become too aware of stamps due to an inheritance and learning from a friend who knows about everything on stamps.

The Postage Dilemma

On January 7, 1963, the USPS set the rate for a standard weight first class letter at 5¢, and 4¢ for postcards.

CJB:
As we know, the first 2 letters (The Confession) from Nov. 29, 1966 were not stamped, yet made it to their destinations.

April 30, 1967 The 3 scrawled letters each had 2 4¢ Lincoln stamps on them. What is interesting is that this collection was not available until 1965 in "The Prominent American Series." It makes since whoever mailed them needed 1¢ extra postage, but why did they purchase 4¢ stamps to begin with as the price had changed 4 years earlier!!! As it was the postcard price, it makes me think their primary correspondence was postcards- such as someone in the military or a student away from home writing home alot? Possibly someone with pen pals, but unlikely- any other thoughts? They clearly weren’t leftovers since the stamps didn’t exist until after the postage change.

On January 7, 1968, postage for a standard weight first class letter was raised to 6¢.

The Cipher Killer:
July 31, 1969- Others have also noted the discrepancy in postage on the 3 cipher mailings, postulating it was a distance thing but in the US the same postage worked despite distance. While I can give no logical explanation, I am curious- how many pages was each writing? Both the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner letters state ‘(over)’ at the bottom of the top sheet. The Vallejo one does not, and the second page is shown as a half sheet everywhere I have seen. While he was still at overkill using 2 6¢ stamps (still FDR), maybe even believing the cipher would put his weight over, perhaps the Vallejo one was even thicker so he added more? Can any of this be confirmed as far as number of sheets he used in any of his letters? EDIT: I have found copies where pages show through in the Vallejo letter, so maybe the common one is a cleaned up version? But I have also found examples in another letter where the front to back seems to be from a copy from the FBI as it has marks that show through that are not correct. (The FDR stamps he used were also a part of the Prominent American Series, available until 1981).

Birth of Zodiac:
August 5, 1969 to SF Examiner- 3 pages, No envelope

October 13, 1969 with 1 page and Stine shirt, 2 6¢ FDR’s again to cover extra weight of shirt.

November 8, 1969 Dripping Pen Card and 340, again 2 6¢ FDR’s thinking the extra weight needed to be covered?

November 9, 1969 Bus Bomb- 6 pages long (unknown if front & back) but used only 2 6¢ FDRs. Was he running out of stamps? It is hard to tell where the perforations are on these last 3 letters, but it looks like the bottom of the stamp is straight, suggesting he got to the bottom of his sheet.

***I should also note none of these FDR’s are not vertical Coil Stamps though they did exist (and these cannot be horizontal Coil Stamps due to positioning of stamps left to right that appear attached on envelope) as the "Franklin D. Roosevelt" on the vertical coil was printed along the bottom of the stamp, not the side. He likely purchased stamps by the sheet- if you assume 2 stamps on the lost envelope, that totals 16. He may have needed 4 for real life in these ~3.5 months and easily used them up. EDIT, from above, also possible *I found a book with 40 stamps- 32 6¢ FDRs and 8 1¢ Jeffersons for $2 and could have come from a vending machine, but he still used up the other FDRs.

December 20, 1969 Belli letter- just one page and 6 1¢ Thomas Jefferson stamps, possibly because he ran out of FDR stamps?

April 20, 1970 & April 28 1970 is a return to 2 6¢ FDRs.

The one stamp issue:
To me, he gets oddly brave by his June 26 1970 letter with the MAP- using only 1 6¢ stamp- I would have been concerned with the map and put extra postage on possibly…

July 24 and 26, 1970 1 6¢ FDRs but are 1 and maybe 2 pages respectively?

October 27, 1970 The Halloween Card with 1 6¢ Apollo/moon landing- "In the beginning God…" Why change up the stamp to something "special"? I know its been questioned, but maybe he just liked the stamp, or thought his special card deserved something special? Or was saying, "In the beginning God (himself) created this beautiful halloween card for my secret pal?

March 13, 1971 LA Times letter and uses 2 6¢ FDRs again- why? It was only one page? The stamp, I should note, are also not Coil stamps though he places the on top of each other, but perforations can clearly be seen on the right hand side.

On May 16, 1971 the cost of postage was raised to 8¢.
(Maybe he didn’t know of postage change and dropped back to using 1 stamp so letters didn’t reach their destination? Just a crazy thought that came to me as I typed this.)

January 29, 1974 Exorcist/Mikado letter with 1 8¢ Eisenhower USA stamp (Part of 1970-74 Regular Issue Stamps)

February 14, 1974 SLA letter with 1 8¢ Eisenhower USA stamp

On March 2, 1974 the cost of postage was raised to 10¢.

May 8, 1974 Badlands/Citizen postcard on preprinted 8¢ Samuel Adams card- possibly interesting as I doubt these were available in vending machines?

And lastly, one that could be interesting with more research:
July 8, 1974 Red Phantom letter 1 10¢ F. J. de Goya stamp (Universal Postal Union collection- set of 8 artists)
So why do I think its interesting? Not for the stamp he used, but another one in the collection featuring the artist Hokusai. He was a Japanese artist most known for his work "The Great Wave" which was recently used as inspiration for the set design of a production of the Mikado. I wonder if any of his work was ever used in other productions of the Mikado- searching is nearly impossible because the artist is said to have used over 50 names in his career, and not all productions may be documented of the Mikado. We also still don’t know Z’s fascination with the Opera, maybe he found Japanese style fascinating? OK, I may be reaching here, but it an interesting thought.

-marie

Credit to Bruce3 @ zodiackiller.com for finding this: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiack … 16#p136816

Possible meaning of tilted stamps! I’d say chances were pretty good it was something along these lines.

Credit to Bruce3 @ zodiackiller.com for finding this: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiack … 16#p136816

Possible meaning of tilted stamps! I’d say chances were pretty good it was something along these lines.

Kudos to Howard aka Bruce3, good post.
I am aware of stamps being placed upside down for LOVE. < we did that in school days. Not sure I have a tilted stamp much thought—- hmmmmm

Zam*

Howard wasn’t the first or the only one to have come up with the idea of stamps being tilted for a reason. I was the first and did so sometime back in 2010 or slightly later. I would like to say it was on Tom’s site but it could have been at the old board. It was most definitely before this new board. However, my idea wasn’t about the Zodiac being in love and wanting to marry the newspapers. Just kidding about the marrying thing. My idea had to do with the faces of the stamp facing in the direction of the papers the Zodiac wrote to. Just saying…..

Soze

Sorry if I missed that Soze. I’ll try and find it.

Just thought these were interesting:

"Do not write to me any more"
"When shall I see you".