Salvador Dali Maximum/Max Card w/ stamp (France, 1979).

Salvador Dali Maximum/Max Card (France, 1979)
w/ stamp designed by Dali (1978)

When this item came to my attention through an online auction, I was intrigued.  Having grown up an amateur stamp collector and the heir to sizeable stamp collections of my progenitors, I had never encountered a "max card."  I think it's a European thing.

Anyhoo, it turns out that a max card is sort of like a first day cover.  In this case, the cover is a postcard with an image of the stamp designed for France by Dali in 1978, with the actual stamp affixed to it and cancelled on the first day of issue, November 17, 1979.

The reverse side of this postcard is numbered 490, but I have no idea of the total size of the print edition.  Seems like a nice low number anyway.

I must say, if there were more Dali stamp designs in my stamp collection, I might actually enjoy my stamps a lot more.  But alas, this is the first and only.

I have never before seen any of these for sale out there, but I imagine that a ton of them exist somewhere, perhaps in stamp collecting circles.  Not really sure, but I mean, there must have been millions of these stamps produced, right?

This max card was a good deal at about two dollars mailed to me from France.