1954 Postal Card 2c Benjamin Franklin Jamaica NY to NYC Collector of Taxes For Sale

30 PM, as indicated by the clearly struck circular postmark. The card is addressed in blue ink to the City of New York, Department of Finance, Kew Gardens, New York, with an additional handwritten notation reading \"Collector of Taxes\" underlined on the left side. Kew Gardens is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. The printed red directive \"THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS\" appears in a centered box, conforming to the standard postal card format of the mid-twentieth century, when the two-cent rate was the prevailing postage for government postal cards. The card exhibits a light cream hue consistent with paper aging, a distinct vertical reddish-brown stain approximately 1.5 centimeters in length on the left side, and minor edge wear along the right margin, suggesting it may have been part of a bound booklet or stacked correspondence. The postmark and stamp impression remain crisp and well-defined, and the handwritten address is legible throughout.The use of a government-issued postal card for official municipal correspondence reflects the administrative efficiency of mid-century tax collection in New York City. The Department of Finance, operating from Kew Gardens, handled property tax matters for the five boroughs, and the \"Collector of Taxes\" designation points to a specific office responsible for receiving payments and inquiries. The Franklin stamp, a ubiquitous fixture on American mail of this era, underscores the routine yet essential nature of such communications. The postmark\'s postal zone number \"9\" further situates the mailing within the Jamaica, Queens, delivery infrastructure of 1954. This artifact preserves a tangible record of municipal bureaucracy in the post-war era, offering insight into the everyday mechanisms of civic administration and the material culture of American postal history.