The hot topics in New England during the month of August are usually the Boston Red Sox run for the pennant, the New England Patriots preseason football games and vacations at the shore.  However, for philatelists this year, it was the annual APS StampShow held in Hartford, Connecticut.

The show ran four full days and our Society manned a spacious corner booth during the entire time.  Although our booth location did not appear to be ideal at first, it didn’t stop both members and interested collectors from finding us.  In fact, as you can see from the list below, 120 members stopped by and signed in, by far the largest contingent we’ve had at an APS StampShow in recent memory.  Our booth served as a meeting place for members to visit with old friends, make new ones, and, in many cases, to put a face with a familiar name.  The friendly atmosphere also attracted many non-members who inquired about the Society and purchased many of our publications.  Book sales for the four days were excellent and we achieved something of a milestone when member Miles Garrod purchased our last copy of Sloan’s Columns.  We also signed up 13 new members, one of our best recruiting results ever at a show, even topping what we did at the Portland StampShow last year.  A number of these new recruits said that they had sought us out because of our prominent full-page ad in the show program.

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During the four days of StampShow in Hartford, the USSS assisted the National Postal Museum in signing up collectors to receive the NPM’s free e-newsletter, Postmark.  This FREE monthly electronic publication features news and information about current and upcoming NPM exhibits, events, and programs.  As a special favor to the USSS, the NPM is extending the registration period to September 15th for our members who were unable to attend the show.  To sign up for Postmark, go to www.npm.si.edu, click on “Sign Up to Receive Free E-Newsletter,” enter your name and email address, and enter promotional code USSSNPM.  Not only will you start to receive this informative newsletter, you’ll also be entered to win a FREE one year membership renewal to the USSS.  It’s a win-win proposition.  Please help the NPM and yourself by signing up today.

—Nicholas Lombardi
President

Tony Wawrukiewicz signs the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists as USPCS president Wayne Saadi observes.

USSS members Anthony S. Wawrukiewicz and John M. Hotchner were added to the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists of the United States Philatelic Classics Society as announced at their annual meeting at NOJEX in late May, and the official signing of the Roll occurred at the APS StampShow in Hartford.

Tony Wawrukiewicz is probably best known for his seminal references on U.S. postal rates, beginning with U.S. Domestic Postal Rates, 1872-1993, which he co-authored with the great Henry W. Beecher.  Beecher died before the book went to press, leaving the responsibility to Wawrukiewicz to see it through to publication and to its warm reception by U.S. collectors.

John Hotchner signs the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists.

In addition to his books, Tony Wawrukiewicz has authored a continuing stream of articles on U.S. postal rates, markings and services, in such key journals as The United States Specialist, The American Philatelist, The Meter Stamp Society Quarterly Bulletin and Modern Postal History Journal.  For the past four years he has written a monthly column on “Modern U.S. Postal History” for Linn’s Stamp News.  He has also served as editor of Auxiliary Markings since 2003 and has also contributed articles to that journal.

John Hotchner is one of the most prolific and influential philatelists of the present era.  It’s impossible to list his philatelic contributions without considerable use of such words as “also,” “further” and “in addition.”  He’s probably best known as an author.  Several generations of readers have enjoyed and learned from his weekly “U.S. Notes” column on page 6 of Linn’s Stamp News, from 1987 to the present.  He has also been prominent as the editor of U.S. Stamps and Postal History since its inception in 1981, as editor of The Philatelic Exhibitor since 1986, as author of two sections of Linn’s Almanac and since 2006 as a monthly columnist in The American Stamp Dealer and Collector.

The philatelic material of the late George W. Brett will be auctioned in a number of upcoming sales conducted by four different auction houses.  This directly reflects Brett’s varied and eclectic interests in stamp production and usage, covering the 19th and 20th centuries with emphasis on the Bureau and Washington-Franklin definitive series, EFOs and Canal Zone, as well as foreign stamps and postal history.

Spink Shreves Galleries, Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, Jacques C. Schiff Jr., and H.R. Harmer will all auction a significant portion of Brett’s voluminous philatelic estate.

The first sale containing Brett’s material will be conducted by Spink Shreves Galleries and can be found in their September 11–13, 2008 Collectors Series Sale.  The sale features many esoteric and interesting individual U.S. lots, as well as a few collection lots.   Though Brett’s material is not specifically identified here, it will primarily include 19th and 20th century stamps and plate blocks including a block of four of Scott #1 (Lot #1004) and Scott #467 (Lot #1445), 5¢ Carmine error, double error in a block of twelve, with Chattanooga, Tenn. Precancels.

Interested collectors can view the material in the sale on the Spink Shreves Galleries website.  Readers will be advised of future sales of the George W. Brett material.

The first annual United States Stamp Society–Barbara R. Mueller Award for the best article published in a single year of The American Philatelist has been awarded to co-authors Steven J. Berlin and James W. Milgram for their engaging and colorful piece, “Early Mail Robberies in the United States.”  The 12-page article appeared in the November, 2007 American Philatelist.

Boldly marked “recovered from a / Mail stolen by the / Indians in 1860,” this 1860 Pony Express letter franked with a 10¢ Washington Type V is among the colorful covers that illustrated “Early Mail Robberies in the United States,” featured in the November, 2007 issue of The American Philatelist.

Dr. Steven J. Berlin is a podiatrist who has been a stamp collector for more than 50 years.  He now has a major interest in interrupted and disaster mail.  Dr. James W. Milgram is an orthopedic surgeon who has collected covers and letters since high school.  He has a wide range of interests in United States postal history, including Civil War patriotic stationery and transcontinental mail.

The United States Stamp Society–Barbara R. Mueller Award consists of a $1,000 cash stipend and recognition on a permanent plaque to be displayed in the editorial office of The American Philatelist.  This year’s winners were honored in a ceremony at the StampShow 2008 Awards Banquet.

APS members voted online and by mail using ballots from the inside front cover of the January, 2008 AP for their favorites from among the 78 qualifying articles by 46 authors published in 2007.  After the polling closed March 1 and the votes were tabulated, the USSS-Mueller Award Committee selected the winner from the top five as voted by APS members and the top five as selected by the staff of The American Philatelist.  The USSS-Mueller Award Committee, led by Peter Butler, included Cheryl Ganz and Kent Wilson.

Barbara R. Mueller is one of the most prominent USSS members, having chaired committees including the Postal History and Markings Committee and the Essays-Proof Committee, editing The United States Specialist from 1972 to 1977, and contributing prolifically to that journal over six decades.  A member of the USSS Hall of Fame and the APS Writers Unit 30 Hall of Fame, Mueller was the recipient of the APS John N. Luff Award for Distinguished Philatelic Research in 1956.

Here are the United States Stamp Society medal winners that have been reported from recent shows:

NOTE:
Awards were sent to the following shows, but no report was returned – if you have information about who won the award, please let me know:

Sandical
Frespex
Lancopex

—Denise Stotts, Awards Committee