3rd Quarter Philatelic Literature Review 2022

Daniel Vooys’ Legacy in the APRL

Using the American Philatelic Research Library

The APRL is the world’s largest — and most accessible — philatelic research library, with over 90,000 volumes and special collections housed in a state-of-the-art facility in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

The collection includes books, journals, auction catalogs, government documents, price lists, new issue announcements, show programs, copies of exhibits, and more. The collection’s coverage is worldwide and the library collects material in any language.

The library is open to the public and accessible around the world via reference, photocopying, and scanning services, and a growing online collection. Normal operating hours are Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time. Visitors are welcome.

Subscriptions to the library’s quarterly journal, the Philatelic Literature Review, include associate membership in the APRL. Members of the American Philatelic Society are full members of the APRL.

Services & fees

Library fees help to offset the cost of providing services. There is no charge for the initial consultation and we will send you an itemized bill for fees when services are provided. Additional donations are welcome.

Book loans by mail

Full members (North American addresses only) may borrow books directly from the library.

Base fee: $10 per shipment (includes up to 15 minutes of staff time)

First book: $3

Additional books (up to 5 per shipment): $1

Photocopies or scans with a book loan: $.25 per page

Photocopies

$10 ($15 for non-members) includes up to 15 pages and 15 minutes of staff time; $.25 per page for additional pages.

Scans

$4 ($9 for non-members) for the first page; $.25 per page for additional pages.

Research assistance

After 15 minutes of staff time, research assistance is billed at $20 per hour in halfhour increments.

Robert A. Mason Digital Library

Members can access the APRL’s growing digital collection. Download, print and full-text search journal issues, books, exhibits, maps, and digitized archival material.

Contacting the library

Search the library’s catalog and explore our collections at stamplibrary.org. To request book loans, photocopies, scans, or research assistance: library@stamps.org • 814-933-3803 (press option 4)

IN THIS ISSUE FEATURES

175 INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BEECH , By Abhishek Bhuwalka

David Beech was curator for the British Library’s philatelic collections for three decades. He offers insights to those collections, reviews some highlights of his career and talks about the future of philatelic libraries in this in-depth Q-and-A interview.

188 DANIEL VOOYS' UNPUBLISHED CARD INDEX By Brian J. Birch

Daniel W. Vooys (1914-1978) created the journal you are holding today, and expanded the scope and availability of philatelic literature to so many. Birch explores his published and unpublished indexes of philatelic literature.

197 WHY SUPPORT THE APRL? VOOYS FELLOWS WEIGH IN STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS

In the first of two reports, the meaning of Vooys Fellowships is reviewed and recently named Vooys Fellows talk about why they feel a commitment to the library is important to the hobby.

203 ES SENTIALS FOR THE U.S. REVENUE COLLECTOR, By Ron Lesher

How did collectors track down stamps for their collections 120 years ago? Collector Lewis Robie told tales about collecting in his 1898 book, Stamp Hunting, which offers some interesting tales from when private die proprietary stamps might have still been found on store shelves or in back rooms.

205 RU SSIAN SPOKEN HERE, By Ray Pietruska

The Rossica Society of Russian Philately collects specialized material aimed at educating and promoting Russian philately. It develops and maintains a large collection of material in Russian, English and other languages.

208 IN MEMORIAM, By Paul M. Holland

Dr. Stanley M. Bierman created an extensive philatelic library and shared the wisdom of the hobby’s great collectors

JOURNAL

100 Match Factory Place Bellefonte, PA 16823

Phone: 814-933-3803

Fax: 814-933-6128 plrarticle@stamps.org

ADMINISTRATOR & PUBLISHER

Scott D. English • scott@stamps.org

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Susanna Mills • smills@stamps.org

SENIOR EDITOR

Jeff Stage • jstage@stamps.org

GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Chad Cowder • ccowder@stamps.org

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, LIBRARIAN & DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION SERVICES

Scott Tiffney • stiffney@stamps.org

ADVERTISING SALES

Steve Schwanz

Fox Associates, Inc. 800-345-8670 x 114 adinfo.theamericanphilatelist@foxrep.com

©American Philatelic Research Library, 2022

Philatelic Literature Review (USPS 928-660, ISSN0270-1707) is published quarterly by the American Philatelic Research Library, Inc. (APRL). Telephone: 814-933-3803; Fax: 814-933-6128; E-mail: plr@ stamps.org; Website: www.StampLibrary.org.

Postmaster: send address changes to the APRL, 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte, PA 16823. Periodicals postage paid at Bellefonte, PA 16823, and additional entry offices.

Annual subscription rates: $21, regular members; $30, sustaining members; and $50, contributing members. Libraries and institutions, $30. Single copy price, $5.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

BY MELANIE G. ROGERS President

New Leadership and New Goals for APRL

Welcome to the Philatelic Literature Review for the third quarter! If you are a long-time subscriber, I thank you. If this is your first issue, I hope you will stay with us.

I was elected president of the board of trustees for the American Philatelic Research Library at the end of August at the Great American Stamp Show in Sacramento, California. I would like to take part of this column to give you an introduction.

In 2019, when I ran to become a trustee, many people asked me if I had a library background. I said no, I just have an interest in libraries and in this one because it is connected to our marvelous hobby. The APRL is a wonderful resource for exhibitors and those who simply want to research a favorite stamp or learn more about an aspect of the hobby. The range of digital and print materials go into great detail on a broad range of topics, many of which could not be found in a non-specialty library. I still believe the APRL is a hidden gem. Not nearly enough members and non-members use its services. A great opportunity exists to become the top philatelic library in the world.

My background is in journalism. I have a bachelor’s degree in communication arts and French from Hood College and a master’s degree in business journalism from Northwestern University. I studied abroad in Strasbourg, France, for a full year. During graduate school, I interned for Bloom-

berg News in Hong Kong. Professionally, I have had a varied career with jobs in journalism, marketing, public relations and pharmaceuticals, which is where I work today. I am currently a senior manager at the Japan-based company Astellas in Illinois. Astellas makes medications for leukemia, prostate cancer and urinary incontinence among others. I am the system lead for a global document management system. We store documents for quality assurance, information systems, supply chain and chemistry, manufacturing and controls. On a daily basis, I interact with colleagues in multiple countries. No two days are the same.

For almost 10 years now, I have been active in organized philately and have collected stamps on and off since I was 10 years old. I have served the Chicago Philatelic Society, Germany Philatelic Society Chapter No. 5 and the Collectors Club of Chicago as secretary. Prior to my current role on the APRL board, I contributed as secretary there, too. I continue to serve as publicity chair for the Chicagopex stamp show, one of the top World Series of Philately events annually. I appreciate the variety of people I have met in the hobby and feel a strong sense of community the longer I am in the hobby.

Now that you know more about me, I would like to describe some goals I have for the APRL. These are goals I hope to partner with the other trustees on as well as those with a strong affinity for the library.

The APRL is in a great position in terms of the building mortgage after it was paid off in 2020. For a long time, this was a key goal for the board of trustees and those with a strong interest in the library’s well-being. Now that that obligation is complete, we can look forward to further strengthening the library.

In conjunction with the other trustees and Administrator Scott English, I am looking to advance the library in a number of ways. Even if you are not on the board of trustees, there are ways you can help.

Visibility – As a PLR reader, you are likely strongly vested in the library and want it to succeed. But the PLR has a relatively small audience compared with the size of the APS membership. I would like to see awareness of the library grow in terms of increasing the number of members and non-members who use the library’s range of services, including borrowing books, searching in the digital collection and contacting the staff to conduct research on one’s behalf, which may result in scanned images or paper copies. The more people who are aware of the library and its services, the more beneficial the library will be to the APS membership as a whole.

How do we increase visibility? One way is to strengthen the PLR and increase the range of voices that shine in its pages. If you are a long-time reader and have an idea for an article, you should contact Editor-in-Chief Susanna Mills and discuss it with her. Even if you do not write on a regular basis, we would love to see new writers contribute. And you will not be on your own – the PLR editorial team is glad to work with you.

Another opportunity lies with the APS website and social media. From time to time, the library staff contributes content to the APS website, which is then shared on APS social media. Another source of content comes from promoting PLR stories on social media. The library’s Twitter account has been put on pause with the intent to create a stronger APS presence. While I personally would like to see the library’s social media revived, so long as that is not the case, I encourage those of you who are on social media to share library-related content when you see it posted on the APS Twitter and Facebook accounts and to “like it” on Instagram.

If you visit the library, try to document your visit –take pictures with the staff and of the research you are doing and share it online and with your friends and family.

APRL BOARD OF TRUSTEES

PRESIDENT

Melanie G. Rogers

VICE-PRESIDENT

Greg Galletti

SECRETARY

Charles Epting

TREASURER

Kathryn Johnson

TRUSTEES

Thomas Bieniosek

Hugh McMackin

Casey Jo White

Rich Drews

Murray Abramson

CONNECT ONLINE

Every bit of communication helps raise awareness that the APRL is available and a treasure to benefit many people, both inside and outside the APS.

Sustainability – This goal is two-fold: financial and environmental.

Financial: Yes, we paid off the mortgage for the American Philatelic Center, many years early, which is a tremendous accomplishment. But there is more that needs to happen to strengthen the library financially. The library has a number of ongoing funding opportunities, such as the Vooys Fellow program – featured in this edition of the PLR – in which participants contribute $5,000 over five years. Those funds are invested and used to support library operations. We are fortunate to have had a good number of members become Vooys Fellows during the pandemic, and we are always grateful for more.

While many funds have been allocated for initiating a digital collection, additional funding is needed to sustain it; specifically to support licensing for online access and to pay to store the scanned, searchable materials on servers and backups. We need to look at these costs as recurring and ongoing and plan for them. If you donate to the APRL, consider stipulating that your donation go toward maintenance of the digital library. We also encourage you to donate to another area of the library that holds a special place in your heart. There are lots of opportunities.

Environmental: Here, I am looking to enhance the environmental footprint of the American Philatelic Center. There are opportunities to make the APC more energy efficient, which will lead to financial savings. I will recommend to the board to explore what is involved in obtaining LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. We are in the early stages of this goal, and the board

of trustees will learn more before taking action and determining next steps.

Digitization – Some of you may be wondering why this one came last in the list of goals. I believe the first two goals feed into this one. Increasing awareness of the library will lead to more people using the digital holdings and contributing via donations. Further, we need to be in a strong financial position in order to support digitizing more content as well as maintaining and enhancing what is already in place.

Previously, the APRL was fortunate to be the beneficiary of the Robert A. Mason Estate, whose sale is expected to generate at least $200,000 for digitization. With gratitude, the APRL named the digital library in his honor. Other funding for digitizing the collection has been obtained through Giving Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday as well as the Stamp Soiree at the Great American Stamp Show and its precursor.

But we do not have to wait for a special occasion to support the digitization effort. Folks can donate at any time – financially and by volunteering. Building a robust digital collection involves not only scanning material and making it searchable but also creating entries in the online catalog, which is a great opportunity for volunteerism. You don’t have to be at the APRL in person to do it. You can participate from the comfort of your home, regardless of where you live. If you would like to learn more about being a volunteer to add entries to the online catalog, please email library@stamps.org, and a library staffer will contact you with details.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first column. I look forward to working with my fellow trustees, the executive director, the APRL team and the many fans of the library to continue the conversation.

The Twelfth Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposium

PLAN TO ATTEND

December 8-9, 2022

Smithsonian National Postal Museum Washington, DC

Political Systems, Postal Administrations, and the Mail

For more information and updates regarding the 2022 Postal History Symposium please see the Symposium and Lecture page on the National Postal Museum’s website or the Postal History Symposium page on the American Philatelic Society’s website.

BY SUSANNA MILLS Editor

The APRL’s Legacy and Future

Welcome to new leaders

Welcome to the APRL’s new Board of Trustees! Our new president, Melanie Rogers, was elected at Great American Stamp Show and introduces herself and her goals to the readership in this issue. Please be sure to read her column this month and share your feedback. Kathy Johnson, newly elected treasurer of the APS Board, will also serve as APRL treasurer. We also welcome Charles Epting (our new secretary), Murray Abramson, and Casey Jo White to the board. You’ll notice that the new makeup of the board is younger than ever before, which in my opinion speaks to the dedication of these younger philatelists to preserving and sharing the great body of philatelic literature that we are caretaking here at the APRL.

I also want to warmly thank the outgoing members of the Board of Trustees. Hugh Lawrence, Kristin Patterson and our president, Ken Grant, have offered years of dedicated service to the APRL, and celebrated many wins with us, not the least of which was the final payments of the building mortgage, leaving us free and clear with a beautiful library and APS headquarters.

Vooys talk

This issue visits a towering figure in the philatelic literature world, who barely needs an introduction: Daniel W. Vooys. Vooys put this journal in motion and was its editor for many years, even before it

Daniel W. Vooys

was the official publication of the American Philatelic Research Library. The library itself owes a great debt to Vooys for its creation, as does the wider world of philatelic literature. In his honor, the Vooys Fellow distinction was created for today’s philatelists who dedicate $5,000 over a five-year period to the APRL. The last recognition of Vooys Fellows in this journal occurred in 2019; since then, in 2021 and 2022, the number of Vooys Fellows has skyrocketed.

This issue recognizes and thanks several of the Vooys Fellows who joined us in 2021 and 2022. The fourth quarter issue will recognize the rest. We asked

them to share what the APRL has meant to them, and why they chose to support its missions on page 197.

We also share more about the man himself in an article by Brian Birch, page 188. Along with a biography about Daniel Vooys and his philatelic achievements, Birch discusses Vooys’ love for indexes. The Philatelic Literature Review was created to publish lists, indexes and bibliographies of publications, and to review new publications, as Birch explains. But the APRL has a wonderful, unpublished resource in its archives: Vooys’ card index, well over 20,000 entries filing books and articles by subject.

Also in this issue

Many of you know David Beech from the pages of this journal. The importance of his life work of preserving and making accessible philatelic literature and philatelic history cannot be overstated. In this issue, Abhishek Bhuwalka asks David many insightful questions, adding greatly to the details David has shared in previous interviews. It may be preaching to the choir, but I found his statements about philatelic literature to be highly insightful. Thank you to both Abhishek and David for sharing so freely.

We also welcome back Ron Lesher, who revisits an oldy-but-goody, Stamp Hunting, in a review for the modern audience.

Finally, Ray Pietruska graciously offers insights into the Rossica Society of Russian Philately and some important resources for collecting Russian material that you might not know.

Help needed

We are looking to add more philatelic literature reviewers to our roster. We rely on the time and efforts of volunteer book

reviewers. I would like to say a special thank you to Giorgio Migliavacca and Alan Warren, who are our star reviewers and contribute most of the reviews you see in these pages. However, we would be glad to welcome others into the fold. If you are interested in volunteering on a regular basis, or have a single book (or other resource) in mind to review, please contact me at smills@stamps.org or (814) 933-3803 (ext 207) and I will be glad to discuss the parameters.

I will also point out that far more than books alone are eligible for reviewwe would be glad to publish a review of a podcast, online resource, lecture, exhibit, or any material that seriously contributes to the literature of our hobby writ large. Thank you for your consideration.

Feedback matters

How often do you get direct, faceto-face feedback on your work? For me, the long week spent at Great American Stamp Show, though tiring, was worth every minute. I got to meet many PLR readers in person – and convinced some folks to write for future issues of the journal, to boot.

There are important questions I like to ask when I meet a reader of the PLR (or of The American Philatelist). Is this publication meeting your needs as a reader and researcher? What are we doing well? What improvements would you like to see?

I will put these questions to you, and invite you to correspond with me at smills@stamps.org, or to write a letter to the editor at PLRarticle@stamps.org. Remember, the best way to ensure that the PLR is a valuable, must-keep publication is to give me feedback. I will always appreciate hearing from you.

LIBRARY NEWS

BY SCOTT TIFFNEY

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.” – Andrew Carnegie

American Philatelic Research Library

Bellefonte, PA

Contact: Scott Tiffney

stiffney@stamps.org

Back in July, the APRL was a hub of activity as 15 volunteers gave of their time during the first in-person Volunteer Work Week in more than two years. This year’s event saw volunteers perform a variety of tasks related to sorting, organizing and inventorying materials in the Dr. Herbert Trenchard donation, the backlog of library donations, our used book inventory and for the library’s archives. The work culminated in the sorting, organizing and processing of two pallets of the Trenchard donation material, 40 boxes of library donations, several shelves of used books and a significant amount of archival material.

Work also continues on the Phase I digitization effort to process and upload the backlog of digital journals into the

APRL’s Robert A. Mason Digital Library.

To date since March 1 when this phase of the project began, more than 1,500 journal issues have been added at a rate of over 60 issues a week. Journals that have been added to the database since commencing are the Airpost Journal, Tell, El Quetzal, Bulletin of the Polonus Philatelic Society, Menelik's Journal, Penny Post, Philateli-Graphics and The Lion.

Collectors Club of New York

New York, NY

Contact: Robert Gray

Librarian@collectorsclub.org

The Collectors Club of New York Library was housed in a beautiful building at 22 West 35th St. in midtown Manhattan. This 150-year-old, five-story building, however, no longer serves the club’s best interest and is being sold.

The library occupied in part, three floors of the building, with the Reading Room, holding primarily books organized by country on the first floor; rare books and auction catalogs in separate rooms on the third floor; and periodicals in the basement.

The task of preparing the library for the move into storage and ultimately into a new midtown address was led by the club’s executive director and librarian, Andrea Matura. Several experi-

Volunteers work on the Herbert Trenchard collection at the APC during Volunteer Work Week.

enced individuals were hired to help with the rare books and auction catalog collections and volunteers assisted throughout the process.

Packing and removal of the library’s approximate 3,000 linear feet of shelves started August 1. The new space will permit the library to be on one floor and a plan is to place all auction catalogs and periodicals on high-density shelving. Reading Room books will be on open shelves as they are now and the rare book collection will be held in a separate secure room.

The move presented the opportunity to improve the organization of the William Reynolds Ricketts and Victor Sup-

pantschitsch collections, both donated to the Collectors Club. These contain mostly books and catalogs from the classical philatelic period. They have been brought together and will be housed in the rare books section of the library. All the books from the safe and rare book room have been inventoried and placed in archival packing.

In addition, about 200 feet of shelved auction catalogs from the early 1900s were transferred to archival boxes. The rest of the auction catalog collection was boxed in alphabetical order. Debbie Freidman, a club volunteer, pulled redundant stamp catalogs from the shelves and, if appropriate, these were donated to other libraries. The journals were held in high-density shelving and filing cabinets and, therefore, were ready for packing.

The library also holds documents that require special care as they are often oneof-a-kind items entrusted to the club. For example, in 1940, Edward Spring Knapp, a collector of classic stamps and covers, died and his estate arranged for the sale of the collection. Prior to the sale, black and white photographs of each cover were taken and placed into 186 small photograph books that were ultimately donated to the Collectors Club Library. Such foresight is rare, and the club is privileged to have this archive.

The 186 books, numbered 1-185 plus volume 58A have been wrapped in glassine and placed in archival boxes. They were placed in the proper order, with an index, and a copy of the three auctions under which the covers were sold. The Philatelic Research Laboratories, owned by Y. Souren, retained Knapp’s notes. It had previously identified the “Knapp Shift” on the 10-cent Washington U.S. Scott No. 2 as a genuine stamp, but years later, aided by sophisticated analysis, it

The Collectors Club of New York's former home.

turned out to be bogus.

In addition to classic U.S. stamps, the Knapp legacy included U.S. No. 1 and 2 on cover, locals, banknote covers, fancy cancellations, Confederate stamps and covers, 1850-1930s on covers. as well as many covers that were trans-coastal, Gold Rush, and to Central America. There are 1861 postal stationery, Western Express, Pony Express, steam covers, and pre-stamp U.S. covers. In book 77, there are Penny Black covers, Mulready envelopes and Canada Small Queens on cover. That is a lot, but after all there are 186 books of photographs! Other documents include manuscripts, research notes and correspondence.

Not all donations were made in such an organized manner, and some will require serious research effort to organize. There is, for example, a box labeled “Calvert M. Hahn Research Collection.” It is filled with notes and waiting for a scholar. Hahn was one of the most prolific research authors on stamps and

postal history. He was inducted into the Philatelic Writer’s Hall of Fame in 2001, and posthumously into the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 2006. The library would welcome a scholar to study the contents of this box as well as the many other treasures of the Collectors Club Library

The move has also highlighted the need to be more diligent in putting holdings into the Philatelic Union Catalog. For example, most of the library’s journals and auction catalogs have not been entered and none of the documents. It will take about a year before our new facilities are opened. High density shelving must be designed and built around the space available in the architectural plans. Regular library shelving will also have to be ordered. With the new space it may also be possible to display some of the philatelic memorabilia of the club, including John Luff’s philatelic show medals and photographs of some of the pioneers of American philately.

One hundred eighty-six photograph books, preserved as part of the CCNY library.

National Postal Museum

Washington, D.C.

Contact: Baasil Wilder WilderB@si.edu

The National Postal Museum (NPM) Library recently digitized  Rare Books and Their Prices – With Chapters On Pictures, Pottery, Porcelain, and Postage Stamps: https://library.si.edu/digitallibrary/book/rarebookstheirpr00robe.

The author, William Roberts (18621940), was an art critic and art sales correspondent for the London Times. There are 10 of his books in the Smithsonian libraries (mostly in the Smithsonian Art Library). One of the 10 books is in the National Postal Museum Library collection. This 149-page book was published in 1896.

In June, the NPM Library hosted the

director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty. Her posts about the experience are on Twitter: https:// twitter.com/evangelestia/status/1545072318451519488.

Postal History Foundation

Slusser Library

Tucson, AZ

Contact: Valerie Kittell library@phftucson.org

The new museum exhibit is complete, and it will educate and entertain the public when the library is again fully open. The exhibit teaches about postal concepts through a historical lens, particularly through the manner in which the postal service helped build the American West.

The four sections within the small exhibit room will explore technology and transportation of the mail and the cultural and economic impact of the mail.

In the last issue, the “Operating a Post Office” section was described. Another section is “Postal Rates and Money Orders.” Visitors can weigh letters and parcels on old-fashioned scales and determine the cost to mail using a QR code that opens up webpages containing current and historical postal rates. (Did you know, after factoring for inflation, postage stamps have generally stayed around the same price? That's something visitors will learn in the new exhibit.)

The Paymaster, an automatic check writing machine, is also featured; some Paymaster models were used by the Post

The director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty.

Office to issue money orders. A video on the kiosk display shows the Paymaster in action! Finally, an 1897 Sears catalog reprint, which visitors can look through, demonstrates the part that the money order system played in the growing American economy during the days of westward expansion.

Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library

Denver, CO

Contact: Sherri Jennings rmpllibrarian1@gmail.com

The RMPL is running out of room. The library had never used its bottom shelves, thinking that those particular shelves wouldn’t be readily accessible. But having to expand, all the books are moving down. Patrons will have to be flexible.

The RMPL is absorbing the library of the Great Britain Collectors’ Club. These

books cover the entire British Empire. The collection of Great Britain is now doubling.

The periodical room continues to improve, thanks to the efforts of volunteers Rod and Regina. They’ve removed magazines from cardboard holders, which were ruining the periodicals, and moved them into plastic holders, re-identified the contents and replaced labels. There are more than 750 titles in the periodicals room. Volunteers did quite a bit of work, and the room looks much nicer.

The Western Philatelic Library sent along their unwanted items at no cost. These have improved the collection and the RMPL is grateful for the additions. Library stamp sorters continue to fill sales books and pickle jars. These are nice money makers for the RMPL. Gary and Paul set up and ran the library auction. Their efforts are appreciated as the event brought in a substantial amount of money.

David Beech delivers a keynote speech for the first annual Crawford Festival.

The library continues to be a vibrant and useful resource for all philatelists and everyone is urged to stop by when they are in Denver.

Royal Philatelic Society

London

The John Sacher Library

London, UK

Contact: Nicola Davies

research@rpsl.org.uk

The Royal Philatelic Society London awards the Crawford Medal annually for the most valuable and original contribution to the study and knowledge of philately in book form, whether physical or electronic. Named to honor the memory of the society’s former president, Lord Crawford, it was first presented in 1920.

Nominations are invited for any book on a philatelic subject that has been published and was available for sale in 2021 or 2022. The book does not have to be published by the Royal Philatelic Society London or be written by a Royal member. Nominations are accepted from any individual, society or body even if they are not society members.

Nominations should be sent to Nicola Davies, Head of Collections, at The Royal Philatelic Society London, 15 Abchurch Lane, London EC4N 7BW or emailed to her at daviesn@rpsl.org.uk to arrive by January 31, at the latest. A non-returnable copy of the nominated book must be supplied to the RPSL library by that date if it does not already have one.

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the first Crawford Festival. Feedback from the event has been overwhelmingly positive so the library is now busy preparing for next year’s festival, which will have the theme of “Philatelic Journals.” Save the date for June 27 and

28 for the 2023 Crawford Festival. For further information or to be added to the mailing list, email daviesn@rpsl.org.uk.

Vincent Graves Greene Research Foundation

Harry Sutherland Philatelic Library

Toronto, Ontario

Contact: Willow Moonbeam

library@greenefoundation.ca

The library was open for CAPEX ’22, the first international one-frame stamp championship exhibition held June 9 to 12 in Toronto. The library supported the organizers with the literature exhibits and remained open for the duration of the show. Many visitors came to do research during their time in the city. Now that the show is over, many literature exhibits have been donated and work continues integrating them into the library’s collection.

In addition to the direct support in the library, a number of library treasures were taken to the show to be displayed. This included a medal from CAPEX 1951 and a railway postal map of the maritime provinces. This map has been cut into pieces, attached to linen and bound with a slipcase; it’s lovely.

The library is still open by appointment. Contact Lee Ann at 416-921-2073 or info@greenefoundation.ca to set up a time. Although the number of visitors has increased the library continues to respond to research requests as many philatelists prefer to work on their collections from home; send email requests to library@greenefoundation.ca. As the excitement from CAPEX abates, the library returns to routine activities.

FROM THE LIBRARIAN’S DESK

BY SCOTT TIFFNEY Librarian / Director of Information Services

“Libraries and places like that inspire you to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.”—

ASwe honor in this issue one of the truly extraordinary examples of the generosity shown by our members and patrons, that of becoming a Vooys Fellow, we are reminded of the many ways in which our members and library patrons support and sustain the library.

One of the truly unique experiences that I’ve had in the 10 or so years I’ve been privileged to work at the American Philatelic Research Library is that of witnessing the generosity of our members and library supporters through their volunteering. This past summer the library hosted 15 volunteers during Volunteer Work Week 2022. These folks gave of their time at their own expense to come and assist us with various library tasks. Many of those present during the week have done so on an annual basis.

In addition, we are also fortunate to have our regular local volunteers that work for us on a weekly basis as well as a dedicated group of remote volunteers that help us with tasks that they can do at their leisure from home. But volunteerism is but one example of the generosity witnessed here at the APRL.

On a daily basis we receive other examples of support for the library in the form of literature donations. With the goal of growing the scope and size of the library’s holdings, members, nonmembers, authors, publishers, clubs and societies, as well as individuals, all reach

John Coltrane

out to us with materials for the collection. The donations arrive in the form of new journal issues from clubs and societies, the latest publications from authors and publishers as well as items given to us as a result of downsizing by a library or individual. These donations are vital in sustaining and growing the APRL’s holdings.

Another example of the generosity shown the APRL is that of monetary donations in the form of patronage, subscriptions and membership. From library patrons rounding up their library service invoice payments to include a donation; to members contributing funds for a particular cause, such as digitization; to those renewing or newly subscribing to the PLR or choosing to become Sustaining, Contributing or Life library members, each of these donations contribute in a meaningful way to maintaining the resources and services of the library.

Finally, our Vooys Fellows go above and beyond with their commitment to the APRL by providing the funds necessary to continue the mission of “a research library for the society” begun by Daniel Vooys when he was first appointed to lead the Library Founders’ Committee in 1967. Back in 2018 when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the library’s incorporation as the APRL, I had the distinct honor of meeting many of the current Vooys Fellows. Each Fellow is a unique example

of the passion, commitment and generosity of our membership in providing the library with the continued support needed to serve the research needs of our members and the worldwide philatelic community.

Digitization update

In this third quarter of the Phase I Digitization Project growing the resources of the Robert A. Mason Digital Library, work continues to go very well with currently no significant setbacks. In this third quarter of the project, 1,101 journal issues were uploaded, bringing the current total of journal issues in the database to 5,132.

Of note this quarter a significant number of issue uploads have been made for the Airpost Journal, Tell, El Quetzal, Bulletin of the Polonus Philatelic Society and Menelik’s Journal. Currently, through the dedicated work of digital assistants Betsy Gamble and Geoff Hobart we are still averaging slightly more than 60 journal issues uploaded per week.

As we continue to make our way through the backlog of journals for which we have publication permissions and are already in digital form, on the horizon for the project is the scanning of those permissible journals that are still only in paper form. Options being explored for this phase of the digitization effort, to be begun later this year or early next year, include either doing the scanning in-house with the existing equipment and staff or outsourcing the scanning to a vendor and thereby keeping the current staff focused on upload-

ing digital issues.

We will keep readers informed of our progress and our decision for the next phase of the project.

Postal History Symposium

Organizing the Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposium to be hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum December 8-9 in Washington, D.C. is well underway. Sixteen speakers have been selected to present. As of this writing, specific presentations are being organized into themed blocks in order to facilitate discussions from presentations on similar topics.

This year’s overall theme of “Political Systems, Postal Administrations, and the Mail” examines the missions, practices, and regulations of postal administrations around the world and how these serve as reflections and agents of state goals and ideals.

Among the papers to be presented are those exploring the postal systems and administrations of 19th century Brazil, modern day Russia, the Soviet Union, Italy, Finland, Vietnam and the United States. Some of the diverse topics to be discussed include iconography, postal unions, Sunday mail, privatized mail service, postal cards and transoceanic mail delivery.

As we get closer to the symposium we will have more information about the presenters, the abstracts for their papers as well as the schedule for the event. Check the Postal History Symposium page of the APS website for all the latest updates. and mostly neophyte collector.

The Bibliophile of London: David Beech

TIwould be hard for anyone involved in serious philately not to know David R. Beech. I would like to think of him as one of the handful of academic and scholar philatelists around, a philatelist of philatelists, a philatelist par excellence.

Starting by becoming the secretary of his school stamp club at the age of 12, Beech has donned many hats over the years; chief of which was being the curator of the British Library Philatelic Collections for three decades from 1983 to 2013. For his services to philately, he was invested as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2012 (Figure 1). In 2013, he was the recipient of the Smithsonian Institution Philatelic Achievement Award for outstanding lifetime accomplishments in the field of

philately. After his retirement from the library, he has been busy in philatelic journalism, research, and organization.

Readers of his works (and this interview) will note the precise and economic style of Beech, which says a lot about the person. It’s my pleasure to be interviewing him in the Bibliophile Series.

Hello, David. Your interview has appeared at least twice in the pages of The Philatelic Literature Review. 1 While I am extremely pleased that you have acquiesced for this interview, I will try to ensure my questions do not overlap those interviews. So, starting off, could you tell us more about yourself?

My full name is David Richard Beech and I was born on February 1, 1954. My parents, who married in 1950, were Frank Richard Beech and Eileen Eliza-

Abhishek Bhuwalka

Figure 1. David Beech in 2013 with the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire medal at Buckingham Palace.

beth Beech (nee Harley). I have one younger brother and one younger sister. I was educated in Wilmington and Dartford in Kent.

You are the cousin of John Holman (Figure 2), editor of Gibbons Stamp Monthly, 1985-1988, and British Philatelic Bulletin, 1988-2010. He was four years older. Did you get into stamp collecting because of him?

My cousin, John Richard Holman (1950-2017), was the eldest of two sons of John and Florance Holman (nee Beech). Florance and my father were sister and brother. As you correctly guess, John, was a great influence being four years older. It was he who interested me in philately where we collaborated and collected similar subjects; mainly Great Britain local or private posts. John’s outstanding collection of these and other material from Great Britain and Ireland were donated to the British Library Philatelic Collections in 2019 by his brother, Richard Holman.

You joined the London auction house of H.R. Harmer in 1970, when you were just 16. How did that come about?

I was the organizer of my school stamp club from the age of 12. I arranged a visit (probably in 1968) to the Mount Pleasant mail sorting office in central London, which included going to see the post office underground railway (Mail Rail as it is known today) then still in full operation. In 1970, when I was 16 years old, I organized a public stamp exhibition at my school marking International Education Year. My interest was such that when a vacancy for a philatelic trainee occurred in the Expert Department of the London auction house HR Harmer Limited, I applied and got the job; in the

first instance I was paid just £9 a week, but one was paid in philatelic knowledge, too.

Tell us about your time at Harmers? By then, Cyril Harmer must have been running the firm.

Harmers was at this time still in the ownership of the Harmer family. Henry Revell Harmer (1869-1966) had retired some years before and it was his son Cyril Henry Carrington Harmer (19031986) who was the Chairman. Mr. Cyril, as he was known to the staff, had joined his father in the business in 1921. After an initial period of about two years, I became an auction lot describer, which I would say is the best philatelic training and experience anyone could have, especially at the world’s leading auction house at the time. I still regard this experience as equivalent to a university degree in philately. Apart from lot descriptions one’s duties included meeting vendors and looking at collections potentially for

Figure 2. John Holman, c.2010.

Bernard Bertram Durkin Harmer (19142011), had taken over.

I have remained friends with Bernard’s two sons, Keith and Christopher, and hope to have time to write a history of the Harmer family in philately.

What interests did you pursue in the intervening four years between Harmers and the British Library (BL)?

Before I joined the BL in 1983, I was with Argyll Etkin, Ltd., from whom I learnt a lot.

The great adventure of this period was that I was able to volunteer as the Controller of Exhibits for the London 1980 international philatelic exhibition, which was held on the first floor of the vast Earls Court exhibition center. The show had 4,500 frames of exhibits plus the literature class.

sale or valuation. This was an education in dealing with people and sometimes managing their expectations!

My love of philatelic literature was gained when I became responsible for the HR Harmer reference library and the reference collection mainly of forgeries, reprints, etc. One was to meet many of the world’s leading collectors and dealers over the years, including, during my first month with the firm, (and during the international philatelic exhibition Philympia held in London in 1970), the renowned American dealer Ezra Danolds Cole (1902-1992), of New Jersey.

I left HR Harmer Ltd., at my bidding in 1979. By then the company had been renamed, for reasons I do not understand, Harmers of London Stamp Auctioneers, Ltd. By this time Cyril Harmer had retired and his younger brother,

This was a more than a challenging experience, which lasted over three months at a time before computers, the mobile phone, or emails, and with the complication of customs requirements for exhibits on entry and leaving the UK. In addition, security and transportation of exhibits, many of which were airfreighted (especially from eastern Europe where many commissioners did not attend in person), tested one’s management skills, not to mention endurance. Most days were of 10 hours dedicated work usually seven days a week – exhausting, but great fun, I learnt a lot and made many friends at home and abroad.

Your first book was the 1977 Falkland Islands the ‘Travis’ Franks and Covers. 2 How did this book get written?

The Travis book, which I wrote with my colleague, Andrew Norris, was the result of a major find that I made

Figure 3. David Beech holding one of two copies of the first Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, dated November 1865. Image (c. 2008) taken in the Crawford Library book stacks at the British Library. (Courtesy of the British Library.)

in what was otherwise a rather ordinary small collection. The lady owner of the collection had brought it to Harmer’s New Bond Street office on May 10, 1977 for a formal valuation (for insurance purposes). This was to take place a few days later, and as such it was not inspected closely on receipt.

In the words we used in the book, “A few days later in the Expert Department, David Beech who was examining the collection was stunned to discover among some loose covers a superb example of the very rare black ‘Frank’ of the Falkland Islands impressed on a most attractive wrapper” dated 1871. Colleagues gathered round following my shouts of delight and before long a cover with the black “Frank” was found as well as other significant covers from and to the Falkland Islands. The covers were addressed to George Travis (1844-1912) the postmaster from 1873 to 1878, or to members of his family, in the Falklands or to Tetney Lincolnshire, UK.”

It was one of the most memorable and exciting days of my life. The subsequent sale of this material took place on December 1, 1977 and realized sufficient funds for the lady owner to cover much of the purchase price of a new home.

How did you transition to taking up the role of curator at the British Library Philatelic Collections? (Figure 3)

Looking back to the time I joined the British Library(hereafter, BL) in

1983 I now fully realize that the curatorial role was one which suited me very much; I took to it like a duck to water. It offered a unique opportunity to study, offer interoperation, context, and communicate with philatelists about philately and BL’s collections of philatelic material and philatelic literature on a worldwide basis. In later years, colleagues were prone to describe me as a “Curator’s Curator.” In fact, we should go back to the time of my first visit to see the Tapling Collection on exhibition, which must have been when I was about 12 years old; I came away thinking that the job of looking after it would be an ideal career. So, the one job in the world which was my ideal I got to do for 30 years.

The Curator and Head of the Philatelic Collections in 1983 was Robin “Bob” F Schoolley-West (1937-2012) (Figure 4).

Bob was something of a pioneer in the greater understanding of philatelic conservation and the BL, jointly with the American Philatelic Society (APS), published the book, The Care and Pres-

Figure 4. From left, Bob Schoolley-West, John Davies and David Beech. Photo taken at the London 1990 exhibition Court of Honour at Alexandra Palace in front of the Perkins Bacon D cylinder printing press. (Courtesy of the British Library.)

these two collections.

ervation of Philatelic Materials, in 1989.

A junior curator, Helena Whiteside, mainly managed the extensive UPU Collection, which took up nearly all of her time given the large number of new stamps being issued worldwide. Following her departure to another department within the BL, John N. Davies a fine philatelist and curator joined us in 1986 to manage the UPU Collection and the Crown Agents Philatelic and Security Printing Archive. Following John’s retirement in 1993, Rodney V.M. Vousden was appointed, and following him the current lead curator, Paul Skinner (b. 1959), was recruited in 2004.

I became the principal Curator and Head of the Philatelic Collections on the retirement of Bob Schoolley-West in 1991.

Having visited the BL once, I can say it is one of the greatest treasure houses of the printed work in the world. Most people know the library for housing the Tapling and Crawford collections. Please tell us more about

The Tapling Collection of postage stamps and postal stationery was formed by Thomas Keay Tapling MP (1855-1891) and bequeathed to the nation. It is a world collection and is the only major collection formed in the 19th century which is still intact. It needed rearrangement following many acquisitions by Tapling, which included much of the significant collection formed by the brothers Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) and Martial Caillebotte (1853-1910), which was acquired in the last years of Tapling’s life.

This task was undertaken by the first curator Edward (later Sir Edward) Denny Bacon (1860-1938) between 1892 and 1899 with the assistance of Miss Jane Hamilton (1874-1957) (later Mrs. Herbert M. Ellis). The collection remains in the same form today, so well was it completed. The postage stamps are on about 4,500 pages and it contains most of the great philatelic rarities of the first 50 years of issues from 1840 as well as numerous shades. It is mainly unused and is missing few of the basic stamps. It is truly a world reference collection, an indication of the state of knowledge and of philatelic fashion at the time.

The Crawford Library of philatelic literature was formed by James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (18471913) and was bequeathed to the nation. It is about 95 percent complete of all known philatelic literature, from the first separate item published in 1861 to about 1912-13. It includes the

Figure 5. Receiving the Tapling Medal for 2017 from then-Royal Philatelic Society London President Frank Walton, for his article on the Crawford Library. The Tapling Medal is awarded for the best paper, or supplement published in The London Philatelist dealing with any aspect of philately during the relevant period.

philatelic libraries of John Kerr Tiffany (1842–1897) of St. Louis, and Judge Heinrich Fraenkel (1853-1907) of Berlin. Its catalog was compiled to a high standard by Edward Denny Bacon for Lord Crawford and published in 1911.3

I have described the Earl’s library and its history in an article “The Crawford Library of Philatelic Literature at the British Library and for the World in Digital Form,” which appeared as a supplement to The London Philatelist of March 2016 (Figure 5).4

The British Library’s Philatelic Collections is not just the two mentioned collections, is it? You have written a book on this called A Guide to Philatelic Research at the British Library published in 2019.5 What can you tell us about the other philatelic material in the BL?

The library’s philatelic collections are 76 in number, received as donations, bequests, or transfers from British government departments or agencies between 1892 and 2019. These are both major collections and archives, as well as smaller specialized collections; approximately 8 million items in total. My guide that you mention gives some essential details about them and how they may be seen and used for research. These collections are the world’s largest philatelic holding for exhibition and study. They cover probably all countries that have issued postage stamps, postal stationery, revenue stamps, telegraph stamps, etc. The collections from British government departments or agencies are Archives of Public Record (protected) status. I could go on for pages here – so best get the guide!

In your time at the BL, you were involved in conserving the Crawford Library. It was in “a bit of a mess

then.” Why was the conservation needed and what were your experiences around it?

The work to preserve and make better available the approximate 4,500-volume Crawford Library was a 30-year project (thus taking all of my years at BL) and which still continues today. It was, as you say, a bit of a conservation mess, when I first set eyes on it in 1983. Responsibility for the BL’s printed book collections – mainly organized by language, as it contains volumes in many languages –was unclear. I took the view that I would take the responsibility for it within the Philatelic Collections department.

Much of the library is printed on wood pulp paper so common from the mid-19th century onwards. Such paper is usually acidic causing it to turn brown and in time crumble. The conservation treatment necessary is to deacidify the paper and, if necessary, laminate and rebind. In addition, such volumes were invariably microfilmed. The Tiffany volumes were bound in poor quality leather and almost all have been rebound in blue buckram.

You wrote the Preface to the revised edition of the Crawford Catalogue that was published in 1991. What are your recollections about this reprint?

The Crawford Library Conservation Project started in 1985 and by 1990 much of the “in danger” volumes had been conserved. It was then time to look to make the Crawford Library more easily available for research and scholarship. With the centenary of the Tapling bequest in mind in 1991, we began to look at publishing a revised edition of Bacon’s 1911 original work with its 1926 Supplement and 1938 Ad-

denda. In collaboration with Dr. Arthur H. Groten, of The Printer’s Stone, Ltd. of Fishkill, New York, the Catalogue of the Crawford Library of Philatelic Literature at the British Library was published with the Preface you mention and the BL shelfmarks added. It was launched at a reception given for the centenary of the Tapling bequest on October 2, 1991.

Many (but not all) of the books in the Crawford Library can now be accessed through the Global Philatelic Library (www.globalphilateliclibrary. org). This is a boon to many philatelists like me and helps in the democratization of knowledge. What was your role in this?

I was the instigator of the Crawford Library Conservation Project and The Crawford Library Digitisation Project. The latter was still underway at the time of my retirement at the end of March 2013 and the very considerable work on behalf of the BL in taking that project forward with our partners the British Philatelic Trust (who provided the bulk of the project’s funding) and the Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) with its Global Philatelic Library (who provided infrastructure and the migration of images and some metadata, etc.), was undertaken by my successor, Curator Paul Skinner.

Something in the region of 600,000 pages of text (or about 50 percent of the total) have been released so far. The constraints are that many of the volumes are still in copyright, and that they were not microfilmed during the Conservation Project from which digital images were made.

When the microfilming was being undertaken, we had little idea of how the then-future internet would trans-

form the availability of information. Much work needs to be undertaken to complete the task despite it being the largest philatelic digitization project undertaken anywhere to date.

In the preface to his 1926 Supplement to the Crawford Catalogue, Bacon says, “The ‘Catalogue’ and ‘Supplement’ now give a full description of every work contained in the library down to the dates to which the lists were carried: i.e., to the end of 1908 for PART I (books) and to the end of 1906 for PART II (journals) … It is a source of much regret to me, that owing to the Great War and the difficulty of obtaining descriptions of publications issued abroad during that period, I have found it impossible to continue the catalogue to the present year. I must, consequently, leave to others the compilation of a list of the philatelic literature that has appeared since the dates at which the two parts of the catalogue terminate.”

Now, Lord Crawford continued collecting until 1913 and the British Museum would have added some titles subsequently. Have these uncataloged works also been cataloged and/ or digitized?

Your point is a good one, the answer to which is complicated.

As Bacon suggests, the advent of the Great War in 1914 was a major disruption to the management of the Crawford Library. It should be remembered that the original title of the 1911 Crawford catalog was Bibliotheca Lindesiana Vol. VII A Bibliography of The Writings General, Special and Periodical forming the Literature of Philately. Thus, it is firstly a bibliography of everything that is reported to have existed and secondly, a catalog of the Earl’s philatelic

library. Bacon, who you quote, is referring to some extent to his work for the function of the book as a bibliography.

I do not know of anything added to the Crawford Library after 1913; such would have been added to the library’s general printed book collection. Where a journal was in progress and was still being published in 1907 new numbers were still added to the run; only the details of volume/year, dates, etc. have not been added to the catalog. While Bacon continued to be involved with the Crawford Library after the Earl’s death in 1913 much of his time was taken up with his new duties as curator of the Royal Philatelic Collection for King George V (18651936) from that same year, 1913.

It is worth mentioning that philatelic literature was always acquired by the BL anyway and it is not restricted to being in the Crawford Library. For example, I have written about and listed the stamp albums in the printed book collection for Philatelic Literature Review in 2005.6

You point out correctly that more work needs to be carried out here for full understanding and clarification.

This is a pointed question. The BL has so many different departments, ranging from the arts to business to history to law to social sciences. What would you say is the pecking order of the Philatelic Collections group? For example, when you joined there were three curators and now there are only two.

I feel that it is always a mistake to attempt to compare libraries or departments within a library. It is not a competition as to who holds the most books, or the oldest books, nor the rarest books, etc. Such considerations are unhelpful and are usually made in ig-

norance of key factors. Every subject area or object type is valued within the BL. Many collections have just one or two curators and the dynamics of access and management are often very much different from department to department.

You refer to the staff numbers reducing from three to two curators. This occurred as we made a policy decision not to continue mounting the UPU Collection, which was little used for its modern issues. Curatorial time could be better spent on other work of value to researchers.

I place the onus much on the special or select community served by any such department or collection area and therefore how seriously it is taken by a governing board or management. I never refer to philately as a hobby, I prefer to use the word “subject.” Perhaps readers should refer to my A Guide to Philatelic Research at the British Library, which includes, as Appendix 1, the third version of my “Philatelic Research – A Basic Guide”.7

In 2004, you co-authored the book New Zealand and Dependencies – A Philatelic Bibliography, with Allan P. Berry and Robin M. Startup. What was the genesis of this work?

The bibliography came about when my good friend, Allan Philip Berry (1937-2010) – a great collector of New Zealand philately and its philatelic literature, not to mention being a sometime editor of The Kiwi, the journal of The New Zealand Society of Great Britain – decided that he would like a catalog of his library. Allan and I had become friends during the time that we were organizers of the independent autumn national exhibition, the British Philatelic Exhibition, held in London in the 1970s.

As I had been at the BL for some years by then, I agreed to assist him in the task. Given that Allan possessed a lot of material, we decided to extend the task in 1988 to be a bibliography of all New Zealand philately with the prospect of its publication. We had little difficulty in persuading Robin McGill Startup (1933-2012) to join us in the endeavor.

The book has an interesting story in that another edition of just 16 was published by the British Philatelic Trust the earlier year. Would you like to go on record on that?

The original intention was for the British Philatelic Trust to be the publisher. It mismanaged the project and let production costs – for which it alone had control – get out of hand. This resulted in the trustees deciding to produce the first edition dated 2003 – not formally published – in a limited edition of just 16 (numbered) copies and bound in red buckram (Figure 6)

To the three authors, having put many years work into the project (in my and Allan Berry’s case some 16 years each, for Robin Startup much longer) this was unacceptable. This resulted in a second edition dated 2004 (improved and expanded from the first edition) being published in Thames, New Zealand by Allan P. Berry and myself. This second edition (bound in green buckram) was reset to avoid any question of

typographical copyright belonging to the British Philatelic Trust.

Would you call yourself a bibliophile? If yes, tell us more about your library.

I would refer to myself as a bibliophile and I do collect a limited amount of philatelic literature. But with both the BL and RPSL in London, access to texts and volumes is a comparatively easy matter. You do not have to have a library to be a bibliophile. Perhaps the most valued item in my library is a complete set of The London Philatelist.

I have been greatly privileged to have known and worked with Dr. Robin Alston (1933-2011), who was a brilliant and passionate senior curator at the BL and Editor-in-Chief of the union catalog, the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, of printed books predominantly the hand-printed text in English before 1801. Robin took time to introduce me to bibliography, classic and modern librarianship, often by taking me into the book stacks to look at the BL’s extensive collection of incunabula (books printed before 1501), or of the old Royal Library (transferred by King George II in 1757), or that of King George III (the Kings Library). This rare experience has been invaluable in understanding something of the printed book, its paper, its meaning, its importance, its construction, its binding, its use, its cataloging, and its care.

Figure 6. The first and second edition of the New Zealand and Dependencies book.

Do you collect stamps or postal history? Have you exhibited them?

Not now, and so I do not exhibit. My interest is in philatelic knowledge of all kinds and areas, its understanding and context in history be it political, economic, or social.

Many bibliophiles rue the fact that the general collector of stamps and/or postal history does not give enough importance to philatelic literature; much to their own detriment. On the other hand, collectors would rather spend the limited resources (money but also time) at their disposal on their collection. How can we get collectors more interested in literature?

What you are describing is the difference between a stamp collector and a philatelist. One collects with minimal need for literature and the philatelist collects (but not necessarily; rather like me) but studies the philately and its historical background, etc., which does require literature. The subject of philately can be just what you want it to be. I suppose that the answer to your

question is that one should always encourage a stamp collector to become a philatelist with success depending on intellect, time, and pecuniary considerations.

You were the President of the RPSL (Figure 7) between 2003 and 2005. How did you get involved with the society? Tell us more about your time as a member and later role as President?

I became a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1983 and was elected a Fellow in 1990. I joined the Council in 1993 and was elected a Vice President in 1999 becoming President from 2003 to 2005.

It was a time of careful change and we had established a Management Committee to deal with matters that required a discussion more urgently than the regular Council meeting permitted; as Vice President I was the first Chairman of that Committee.

It was also established that, given a reducing number of people in philately, the Society would seek to increase the number of members to 2,000 from

Figure 7. David Beech at the Royal Philatelic Society London in 2019. His name appears as the President on the left board, 10 lines from the top.

about 1,400. This would much aid its economics given the cost savings and efficiency given by computerization. Further the Society would have a good future, if numbers continued to reduce around the world in general, to have at least 2,000 members.

I drove this policy and the Council readily agreed that if the number of serious philatelists worldwide reduced to say 10,000, the Society would prosper if we had 2,000 to 5,000 of them as members. The adoption, or continuation, of serving serious philately at high standard for everything we do means that membership is strong and growing. In modern terms this identifies our “brand” area within philately.

I have served on a number of committees of the Society, including those of Fellowship, Crawford Medal, Tapling Medal, Museum and Archives, Library, Finance, and Publications.

During my term as President, we made permanent the previously occasional practice of holding a reception after meetings of Fellows and members. This transformed the feel of Society meetings and added much to their

friendliness. I travelled to Sydney, Australia in 2005 for the Pacific Explorer exhibition where a lunch was held for all members of the various Royal Philatelic Societies from around the world (Canada, Cape Town, New Zealand, Victoria, and Zimbabwe); all except the last was represented. Perhaps the event of lasting importance during my term was the decision in 2004 by Fellows and members to admit to membership all interested in philately and not to exclude professionals.

As is usual, four years after my Presidency, I left the council but returned to become the honorary librarian from 2014 to 2015 before passing on that baton to Ben David Palmer.

Are you, or were you, involved in organized philately in other ways?

Over the years I have been involved with many organizations (committees, councils etc.) and these have included the British Philatelic Federation, the Association of British Philatelic Societies, the British Philatelic Exhibition, the London 1980 international philatelic exhibition, the Philatelic Writers Society, the National Philatelic Society, and most recently the W4 Philatelic Research Group.

Apart from the RPSL, you seem to have a special relationship with the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL). In 2001, you visited the place where the philatelic center now stands before it was even bought by the APRL; it was a match

Figure 8. With then-APRL librarian, Gini Horn, who shows David Beech photographs of the Match Factory in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. (From Philatelic Literature Review, 3rd Quarter 2001.)

factory! On October 28, 2016, during the grand opening of the library, you were called upon to give the dinner keynote.8 Tell us more about your relationship with the APS/APRL over the years.

It is not at all surprising given my curator post at the BL that I would enjoy a special relationship with APRL. Relationships are about people, and so regular contact, by means of the thennew email system, with the APRL Librarian Virginia L “Gini” Horn (19512022)9 (Figure 8) was normal. She was in the post from 1984 to 2010. We were in contact quite frequently and discussed matters of policy, conservation, books new and old, cataloging, research, librarianship, and bibliography, etc., and assisted each other with some of the more challenging enquires – not to mention philatelic gossip!

The APRL is an outstanding library for several reasons. One is that it has a large collection of books and periodicals covering any philatelic subject, perhaps the world’s largest. Two, it is

mainly an open-access library, which permits users to come and look at the shelves. Three, its staff is knowledgeable about philately, about how the library works, and most helpful. Four, is that library space is ideal and this I could see when I saw it empty and undeveloped in 2001 in company with Gini and [Executive Director] Bob Lamb (Figure 9).

I have been most pleased to make occasional contributions to The Philatelic Literature Review for it is well edited, maintains high standards and is an outstanding periodical for literature and many aspects of research and scholarship. It is a journal of record.

On the subject of libraries, what are your thoughts on their future? What should philatelic libraries do to pivot themselves into the coming decades?

More of the same, taking advantage of digital opportunities and cooperating with other libraries worldwide. Philately is international so some big thinking is a good approach.

Figure 9. David Beech (left) takes a tour of the Match Factory in 2001 with then-American Philatelic Society Executive Director Robert Lamb (right). (From Philatelic Literature Review, 3rd Quarter 2001.

So, would you say you are fairly satisfied with the current state of existing philatelic libraries?

One can always do better, but with a mainly hard-working volunteer work force (usually most dedicated), and limited financial resources one must be careful with any comment. Setting these considerations to one side, I would say that not enough is put into the understanding of conservation and the conservation (mainly binding and paper conservation etc.) itself. Storage space and cataloging are major factors, and this leads us back to finance – so perhaps another challenge is to find funds.10

What areas of philately are your currently working on?

Endnotes

1 Two interviews appeared in quick succession in 2001 and 2002; the subject matter of these were specific to the philatelic collections of the British Library and the libraries of the Royal Philatelic Society London and the American Philatelic Research Library. See Farmer, Bonny. “A Royal Visit. An Interview with David Beech.” Philatelic Literature Review, 50 No. 3, Whole No. 192 (3rd Quarter 2001): 195-199 and Anon. “The British Library Philatelic Collections. “An Interview with David Beech, Curator and Head of the Philatelic Collections.” Philatelic Literature Review, 51, No. 1, Whole No. 194 (1st Quarter 2002): 12-14.

2 Norris, Andrew, and David Beech. Falkland Islands The “Travis” Franks and Covers, London: Harmers of London Stamp Auctioneers Limited, 1977.

3 This catalog is well known as the Crawford Catalogue. A formal bibliographic description would be: (Bacon, Sir Edward Denny). Bibliotheca Lindesiana Vol VII: A Bibliography of the Writings General Special and Periodical Forming the Literature of Philately. Aberdeen: University Press, 1911.

4 This work as well as the 1991 revised edition of the Crawford catalog can be freely downloaded from the Global Philatelic Library website. See globalphilateliclibrary.org/bl_crawford/crawford_ about.html

5 Beech, David R. A Guide to Philatelic Research at the British Library. London: the Author, 2019.

6 Beech, David R, “Stamp Albums in the Printed Book Collections of the British Library.” Philatelic

These days, apart from my Past President role at the RPSL, which is to take a statesmanship approach to issues and to offer help and advice, and aiding the BL’s philatelic collections by being available for consultation and to give advice and occasionally undertaking some tasks. In addition, I am a member of the Advisory Council of the British Library Collections Trust.

I largely limit myself to research projects and currently the main ones include Mauritius: 1847 Post Office issue printing plates; The H.R. Harmer auction houses; Shanahan’s Stamp Auctions Limited; Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika: 1954-59 issue; British philatelic history; Hejaz: 1916 issue and its literature.

Literature Review, 54, No. 1 (1st Quarter 2005): 16-24.

7 Available freely on the RPSL website. See rpsl.org. uk/Portals/0/RPSL/Beech_David_Philatelic_ Research_2019.pdf

8 Beech’s witty yet thoughtful keynote can be seen on the American Philatelic Society’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/AmericasStampClub and specifically here: youtube.com/ watch?v=hXXsnmxq3iY. A synopsis of it can be read in Anon. “Respected Curator Praises Library, Urges Digitization for the Future.” Philatelic Literature Review, 65, No. 4, Whole No. 253 (4th Quarter 2016): 264-266.

9 I was personally shocked to know that APRL’s greatest librarian of 25 years, “Gini” Horn is no more. The pages of the PLR will show that she was as good a philatelic literature bibliographer as any. I had hoped to do an interview with her. She died February 21, 2022, at Providence Place Senior Living in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. An obituary was published as “In Memory of Gini Horn” Philatelic Literature Review, 71, No. 1, Whole No. 274 (1st Quarter 2022): 15-16. Online obituaries appear here: stamps.org/news/c/news/ cat/aps-news/post/in-memorium-gini-horn and here: fcfreepresspa.com/virginia-l-gini-hornobituary-19512022.

10 In his keynote, Beech says that the conservation, microfilming, and digitization of the Crawford Library cost £3 million and that getting this sum out of the British government was a “tough act!”

Daniel Vooys' Index to Current U.S. Stamp Periodicals

Brian J. Birch

Daniel Vooys founded the Philatelic Library Association in 1942. Its three primary aims were: to encourage the greater use and study of philatelic literature; to provide facilities whereby philatelic literature could be bought, sold or exchanged; and to aid shut-ins and others not able to source their own philatelic literature.

In order to support and publicize the association he published and edited the Philatelic Literature Review. Its objectives were to publish lists, indexes and bibliographies of publications on various specialties as well as to review new publications, as illustrated on its front cover (Figure 1).Unless one is very fortunate, the most difficult issue facing an editor when founding a new philatelic periodical is to attract important contributions. This must have been particularly challenging for Vooys as a war had been raging in Europe for some years and another had just begun with Japan. As Figure 1 shows, indexes to philatelic literature were of primary importance in Vooys’ scheme of things but were very difficult to come by, needing a great deal of time and effort to prepare. So, Vooys resorted to the stock solution used by so many editors both before and since. He compiled one himself.

Who was Daniel Vooys?

Daniel William Vooys (Figure 2) was born on the July 22, 1914, in New York City, to Daniel Joseph Vooys and Matilda Patricia Vooys, nee Harlow. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Canajoharie, New York – a small village along the Mohawk River – of which he was always thought of as a native. His brother, Bernard, was born five years later.

Figure 1. Front cover of the first number of the Philatelic Literature Review.

He graduated from the Bentley School of Accounting and Finance of Boston and began a career in banking. In 1936, he joined the National Spraker Bank of Canajoharie, being elected assistant cashier in January 1940. In August of that year he became the assistant national bank examiner for the Second Federal Reserve District.

He married Grace E. Edick (19192009) in the spring of 1941 and together they had two sons, Daniel F. Vooys and James D. Vooys.

With war imminent, Vooys joined the military in April 1941, serving first with the Field Artillery and Finance Department. Having attended Officer Candidate School, he was commissioned second lieutenant in January 1943. He was released from active service in March 1946 with the rank of captain. However, he remained in the active reserve in the Adjutant General Corps until his final release in December 1952.

Upon his initial release from military service in 1946, he was appointed auditor of the First National Bank of Canajoharie. He spent his professional career in finance, working for banks in his hometown and New York’s Capital district, finally retiring in 1977 as a chairman of the board and chief executive officer.

Although he began to collect stamps at the age of 12, he quickly appreciated that literature was the key to the hobby. By the age of 23 he had joined the American Philatelic Society, one of the many

Figure 2. Daniel William Vooys circa1945 as shown in the Philatelic Literature Review, April/June 1946.

Figure 3. The Philatelic Library Association had members scattered across the world. A piece of mail from the treasurer sent in 1951.

societies and clubs he joined. Others included the Collectors’ Club of New York, the Society of Philatelic Americans, the American Philatelic Congress; as well as specialty societies such as the Scandinavian Collectors Club, the Essay-Proof Society, the Confederate Stamp Alliance (now the Civil War Philatelic Society), the United Postal Stationery Society and the Germany Philatelic Society.

Vooys also joined foreign societies, such as the Junior (later National) Philatelic Society of London and the Association Internationale des Journalistes Philatéliques. With his characteristic drive and vision, he was a founder of the Fine Arts Unit of the American Topical Association, which he initially financed and became its first president, with membership number 1.

Nevertheless, his main interest was philatelic literature and in May 1942, while still serving in the military, he founded the Philatelic Library Association (from 1956, the Philatelic Literature Association) with Lucius J. Jackson (1915-1978).

In spite of the war, he began to pub-

lish the Philatelic Literature Review, of which he was editor from 1942 to 1956 and again from 1963 to 1970. He also undertook the roles of president and secretary at times. Members of the Philatelic Library Association were scattered across the U.S. (Figure 3) and the world, according to a new members list published in the first quarter PLR of 1948. New members listed include those in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Turkey, Iraq and China.

In 1956, he received the Luff Award from the American Philatelic Society (Figure 4) for his exceptional contribution to philately,

Having given up the role of PLR editor, Vooys sold most of his library between 1956 and 1957. However, Vooys soon began to assemble his library anew. By 1964, his reformed library comprised more than 15,000 stamp magazines and he had built up a card file containing 20,000 entries.

From 1965 to 1977, he served the APS in many capacities, including two terms as its president, from 1969 to 1973. The society had originally formed a library almost as soon as it was founded but in

Figure 4. The Luff Award Certificate to Daniel W. Vooys.

those days before it had a permanent home, the library was kept at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, to which it was eventually given in 1929.

Vooys campaigned hard to get the society to reinstate its library (Figure 5).

When, in 1967, the APS decided to form its own library, it was Vooys who drew up the plans for its organization. The American Philatelic Research Library was incorporated the following year and in 1970 he became one of the library’s founders. In order to establish the library, he donated nearly half of his reformed library, about three tons of books and journals. He also merged the Philatelic Library Association into the American Philatelic Research Library, making the Philatelic Literature Review the latter’s journal. He became president of the APRL in 1975, a position he held until his death.

his library was donated to the APRL together with his index to the 15,000-or-so periodicals he had collected. At the same time, the Daniel W. Vooys Fund was established by the society to provide continued support to the library.

In 1980, he was elected to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame.

A new fundraising campaign to support the APRL was initiated in 2007. It included the designation Daniel W. Vooys Fellow to anyone offering to donate $5,000 over the succeeding five years.

Vooys’ Current-Awareness Index

Vooys was elevated to the APS Writers Unit No. 30 Philatelic Writers’ Hall of Fame in 1975.

Having suffered from cancer for a long time, Vooys died September 23, 1978, in New York at the age of 64. His death coincided with the announcement that he had been awarded a second Luff Award for Outstanding Services to the American Philatelic Society. In anticipation of his death, the society had taken steps to advise him of the award shortly before it was due to be announced.

Following his death, the remainder of

The year 1944 was a time of war for America when people did not have a great deal of time on their hands to prepare the required publications for their hobby. Most collectors of the day had the indispensable catalog, the odd handbook and a periodical or two. So, in order to demonstrate the nature and quality of material to which the Philatelic Library Association aspired, in the second and third numbers of 1945, Vooys published a subject index he had compiled of the leading articles in the 23 most important American philatelic magazines that had been published in 1944.

Bibliographic details

Index to current U.S. stamp periodicals: A list of leading references appearing during 1944. The specific issues of the

Figure 5 Daniel William Vooys circa 1964 (Courtesy of the American Philatelic Research Library).

Philatelic Literature Review are:

April 1945, Volume 3, Issue 4, Whole number 10, pp. 5-14.

July 1945, Volume 4, Issue 1, Whole number 11, pp. 3-16.

Notes about the index

Vooys chose to index the 23 most important philatelic periodicals published in 1944 in America, 22 from the United States and one from Canada (Figure 6). It was his intention to include only the leading articles from each issue, omitting the general news, new issue details and other minor items.

The first part of the index covered foreign countries, followed by United States references. With most of the periodicals being from the U.S., this section naturally dwarfs the other parts of the index. Although he tried to categorize

the various entries and put the stamps in date order, the United States section still has a large number of entries under many of the sub-headings.

The final part of the index is General Topics and Specialties. It is evident from its extent and contents that Vooys considered this section, which is so often neglected or ignored completely by other indexers, to be very important. In this index it occupies just over six pages.

Since every entry in this index relates to an issue of a periodical published in 1944, Vooys was able to reference the location of each entry by periodical title, month and page number. Where the periodical was published more than once a month, he had to add the publication day following the month. His Key to Publications Indexed provided details of exactly which issues of each periodical had been published during the year and therefore indexed.

Vooys also noted that full details of each periodical were given in the “Directory of Current U.S. Stamp Periodicals” that had just been published in the January 1945 issue of the Philatelic Literature Review.

Since Vooys had given both the title and author in each of his entries, he simplified the indexing task by omitting cross-references, judging that the title and the heading under which the article was placed in the index provided sufficient information.

A minor difficulty in using the index is that the headings are only distinguished from the index entries by being printed in bold, which is sometimes difficult to distinguish given the rather small typeface used in this periodical.

Figure 6. The first page of U.S. references from the Vooys index (From the author’s library).

Index of philatelists

I have a particular interest in biographies of philatelists of dealers and maintain a bibliography of references to them, which is freely available on the Global Philatelic Library website: http:// globalphilateliclibrary. com, of which the American Philatelic Research Library was one of the founders.

Accordingly, most other indexes list only articles by stamp issuing countries and ignore people and other subjects. Fortunately, Vooys’ use of a general heading to catch anything not found under a country heading, one could reasonably expect to find some articles about specific collectors. In fact, there is a heading “Collectors,” which has only four entries: Ferrary; Robert Blake Yardley; Col. E.H.R. Green and President Roosevelt. I do not suppose that one should expect much more from a single year.

Vooys provided a detailed key to all of the periodicals he indexed. A simplified version of this key is shown on page 195 for the benefit of current readers. It can be seen that he has included all of the general philatelic magazines and most of the specialty societies' periodicals then being published in the U.S. To obtain the latter, he would probably have had to join all of the societies.

Final note on Vooys published index

In the issue of July 1945, while this index was being published, the result of a Membership Survey was also published (Volume 4, Issue 1, pp.1-2). Most

of those that had responded were in favor of continuing the index, some wanting it expanded to include all leading English-language periodicals. There were also those who thought that the Philatelic Literature Review should be restricted to reviewing new books and indexing only.

Notwithstanding these positive comments, this was the only current-awareness index published by the magazine or by Vooys. Nevertheless, Vooys continued to index his own periodicals as he received them, as we shall see next.

Vooys’ unpublished card index

With the index he published in the PLR, Vooys showed what could, or should be done to record the most important periodicals of the time. That seems to have given him the habit of recording articles which had appeared in the periodicals to which he subscribed as well as monographs and handbooks as they were published.

Vooys had disposed of most of his philatelic library once he gave up the role of editor of the Philatelic Literature Review in 1956. However, he soon began to rebuild it and within a decade it contained more than 15,000 periodicals.

Although Vooys never again pub-

Figure 7. Two typical boxes of index cards.

lished an index that he had created, he nevertheless continued to compile an index on cards to the periodicals to which

he subscribed. The entries were handwritten on 3-by-5-inch cards, which were filed in long card-index boxes (Figure 7). Books were filed by subject, whereas articles were filed by subject under the title of the periodical in which they had been published.

In 1964, he estimated that his card index contained some 20,000 entries. By the time he died in 1978, one could imagine that the index had grown substantially. This index was bequeathed to the American Philatelic Research Library along with the remainder of his philatelic library.

Unfortunately, the APRL has no policy and until recently no facilities for making the indexes it holds in its archives generally available to its users by digitization or even photocopying. Accordingly, Vooys’ original card file is currently in storage in the library’s archives.

According to the late lamented Gini Horn (1951-2022), the librarian at the time I was researching this article, the index wasn’t particularly useful. She conceded that Vooys had indexed some journals that she did not think were indexed anywhere else, primarily some English-language specialty journals about the Netherlands. I am sure that this was simply underplaying the usefulness of the index to avoid having to deal

Figure 8. Vooys index cards, including some with entries for The American Philatelist.

with the problem of access.

Since the index seems to have covered the period from about 1917 until at least the late 1960s, a period not well-served by published indexes, I am not sure that I agree with its lack of usefulness. As far as I am aware, only the Royal Philatelic Society London has had its two unpublished indexes digitized, both by the present author.

In 2010, I carried on an extensive correspondence with then-APRL librarian Ellen Peachey, who dug out a couple of boxes of the index files from storage for me, in order to determine whether there was any useful information in the files that would be worth making more widely available. The photographs of the card files shown were taken by Ellen at that time (Figure 8).

Indexes like this consisting of cards or slips of paper are particularly vulnerable to loss, misfiling and handling damage and are not suitable to be freely available to public access. Quite naturally, the APRL has other priorities of greater importance than enhancing access to its archived indexes. Indeed, library staff are always willing to search such indexes on behalf of its members.

Accordingly, the best that I can hope for is that making the existence and location of unpublished indexes more widely known in articles such as this, may encourage serious researchers to make use of the library’s hidden assets.

Bibliography of references to Daniel W. Vooys

“Daniel W. Vooys in the 1940 Census.” Ancestry website: www.ancestry.com, 20177, 1 p.

“ Luff Award," Wikipedia web site: https://en.wikipedia. org, April 16, 2016, 3 pp.

F.L.: “Meet your Editor,” Philatelic Literature Review, April/June 1946, Volume 5, Issue 1, p. 6.

“Daniel W. Vooys Wins Luff Award,” Philatelic Litera-

ture Review, 3rd and 4th quarters 1956, Volume 6, Issue 4, p. 79.

“Canajoharie man joins Jamestown 1st National Bank,” Evening Recorder (Amsterdam, N.Y.), April 18, 1957, p. 6.

“[Candidate] for Treasurer Daniel W. Vooys, of Jamestown, N.Y.,” The American Philatelist, July 1957, Volume 70, pp. 801-802.

“3 new Directors elected by First National Bank: Jones, Anderson, Vooys added to Board at 107th annual Meeting of Stockholders.” Jamestown Post-Journal, January 12, 1960, p. 9.

“New post for Daniel Vooys,” Philatelic Magazine, May 17, 1963, Volume 71, Issue 10, p. 349.

“Introduction to ‘Mr. PL’ himself,” Linn’s Stamp News, January 27, 1964, p. 3.

Dr. John S. Papa: “Daniel W. Vooys,” Fine Arts Philatelist, September/October 1964, Volume 10, Issue 4.

“Know Your Nominees & Vote. For Treasurer Daniel W. Vooys of New York, A.P.S. No. 16746.” American Philatelic Society, USA, Election flyer, n.d. [ca. 1966].

“Daniel W. Vooys: A philatelic bibliophile,” Philatelic Literature Review, December 1971, Volume 20, Issue 4, pp. 269-271.

“Necrology: Daniel W. Vooys,” The American Philatelist, November 1978, Volume 92, Issue 11., pp.1018 and 1104.

“The President’s Message: Philately has lost a giant,” by John E. Foxworth Jr., The American Philatelist, November 1978, Volume 92, Issue 11, pp. 1079-1080.

“APS Hall of Fame Biographies: Daniel W. Vooys.” Hall of Fame website: https://classic.stamps.org, 1980.

“Grace E. Vooys: Obituary”, The Daily Gazette, April 12, 2009. Retrieved from www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailygazette.

“The great philatelic bibliophiles: Daniel W. Vooys, Canajoharie, New York,” by Brace Burnside. The American Stamp Dealer & Collector, March 2015, p.72.

“Daniel W. Vooys Fellow,” American Philatelic Society: www.stamps.org, 2017.

Philatelic Literature Review, January-March 1948, Robert A. Mason Digital Library, American Philatelic Research Library.

Vooys Fellows Support the APRL's Future

Daniel W. Vooys – once called “Mr. Philatelic Literature,” by George W. Linn, founder of Linn’s Stamp Weekly – believed that philatelic literature was indispensable for the serious philatelist. Vooys (1914-1978) felt philatelic literature was so important that he helped start two important philatelic libraries, including the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL).

“The possibilities of the library are tremendous,” wrote Vooys in a 1969 edition of The Philatelic Literature Review, this journal that he started. “It is a good philosophy that one must ‘put something back.’ ” Philatelic historian Brian Birch shares much more about Vooys on page 198.

Since 2007, the APRL has invited those who believe in the great importance of philatelic literature, as well as the conservation, storage and access to research materials, to help the cause by becoming a Vooys Fellow. Since the inaugural class of six Fellows, 50 more names have joined the roll. Some of the most recent Fellows are profiled in this journal (Page 200) and more will be profiled in the Fourth Quarter PLR.

Vooys Fellows are staunch supporters of the APRL and agree to support it by pledging to donate $5,000 payable over five years.

Vooys Fellow privileges include: A vote for Founder/Patron representative on APRL Board of Trustees; an opportunity to run for Founder/Patron representative on the APRL Board of Trustees; a lifetime subscription to the Philatelic Literature Review; a personal Vooys Fellow plaque; and their name on a Vooys Fellow plaque in the APRL.

Here is a list of Vooys Fellows listed by the year in which they were named.

2007

William H. Bauer

Richard Drews

Alfredo Frohlich

Al Kugel

Roger Schnell

Herbert A. Trenchard

2008

Ted Bahry

Roger S. Brody

Sidney Epstein

Hugh J. McMackin III

W. Danforth Walker

2009

Clark Frazier

Don Heller

Barbara R. Mueller

Charles J. Peterson

Stephen D. Schumann

2011

Eliot A. Landau

Wade E. Saadi

Charles F. Shreve

2012

Gerald R. Forsythe

David A. Kent

Janet R. Klug

Steven J. Rod

Lamar Stout

2013

Edward H. Jarvis

Alan Warren

2014

Arthur Cole

Jack R. Dykhouse

Hugh Lawrence

Ken Martin

2015

Gordon Eubanks

Alan Parsons

Mark Schwartz

2016

Robin Gates-Elliott

David W. McNamee

Randy Neil

Paul Petersen

Charles C. Wooster

2017

Stephen Washburne

2018

Michael Turrini

San Diego Philatelic Library

2019

Cheryl Ganz

Irving R. Miller

2021

John H. Barwis

Thomas H. Bieniosek

Scott D. English

Eric A. Jackson

Bobby Liao

Robert Bruce Marsden

Frank L. Sente

Marjory Sente

David T. Zemer

2022

Patrick M. Farrell

Royal W. Gelder

Tami J. Jackson

Brian Birch

In the last two years, the number of Vooys fellows has increased rapidly. We have also received pledges from William O’Connor, Van Siegling, Chris Green, and Foster Miller, who we will proudly welcome to Vooys fellowship over the next several years. We thank you for your trust in the APRL and its missions, and for your investment in its future.

Why Support the APRL?

A Few Words from Recent Vooys Fellows

2022 Fellow - Roy Gelder

For me, the APRL has been part of my philatelic journey. Like many collectors, my interests have evolved over the years. Interest in early Belgium, and its numerous railway cancels and attending summer seminar classes on forgeries and expertizing led to visits to the APRL. Evolving interest in Austria-Hungary by virtue of its extraordinary cultural diversity led to study of cancels, and the changing nature of national boundaries. More visits to the APRL.

As I began to dig deeper into what has become my specialty – the stamps of Bosnia Herzegovina issued during the occupation by Austria-Hungary –periodicals led me to references and citations at the end of articles. These led to more articles, archived exhibits, and the collection of the research papers of Edwin Coleman, a collector of Bosnia material who lived in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Coleman did extensive research on several aspects of Bosnian stamps, compiled what he had discovered, and donated it to the APRL, in his words, “… for the use of those who may, as the years go by, have need for further study.”

Our access to the APRL has been made much easier than in Coleman’s day. Digitization and the David Straight Philatelic Union Catalog pull the resources of several libraries to our keyboard. Even for

those items that cannot be sent through interlibrary loan, the Union Catalog certainly points us in right direction, and makes our time during our visits more productive.

If you are reading this, you already have an appreciation for the APRL, or probably any library. The APRL can always use our help to sort donations, scan materials into digital form or provide support for more specialized tasks.

We can support the APRL by donating our time, our knowledge, and by fostering demand by passing the word about APRL resources and the ever kindly and welcoming help they will receive when

contacting the library. We also can foster demand by asking questions of our fellow collectors and mentoring new collectors who may not have any idea of the depth and scope of the research materials wait-

2022 - Patrick (Mike) Farrell

A Vooys membership is a pledge of support for the APRL. What does the library mean to you?

This hobby has over a hundred years of history, and new discoveries are being made all the time. But that information means nothing unless people can access it. I support sharing information and resources – that’s why I support the APRL.

The APRL’s missions are to preserve philatelic research and literature, and make resources widely accessible through APRL digital. Why are these important in your opinion to the future of philately?

Digitizing resources is the best way to make information accessible to the whole philatelic community. (This is) not only because it’s so fast to share a digital file, but because these books are now searchable so that anyone can quickly find the information they need. Research used to be limited to only the people who could travel to libraries and take the time to sift through mountains of material. Digitization opens the door for anyone to sit at their computer and find what they need to make new discoveries. We are going to discover so many new things!

Do you have any stories about using the APRL and its resources?

The most valuable resource at the

ing for them in Bellefonte.

We are all learning as we collect, we collect more effectively as we learn. How can that be possible without a library?

APRL is its staff. They do an amazing job serving the needs of both beginners and advanced collectors.

Why should readers consider supporting the APRL and its missions?

Everyone will benefit when we make information accessible. We need to be sharing knowledge.

Please share a few words about yourself, your philatelic involvement, etc.

Mike Farrell is a philatelist and world traveler from Indiana. He collects stamps and postal history of the United States and U.S. possessions, and is a member of more philatelic societies than he can list here.

2021 - Robert (Bruce) Marsden

A Vooys membership is a pledge of support for the APRL. What does the library mean to you?

After serving as the volunteer librarian at the Collectors Club in New York for some time, Roger Brody asked if I would be interested in serving on the APRL Board of Trustees, which had a pending vacancy. I believe strongly in the principle of “100 percent board giving” so embarking on the Vooys fellowship program seemed a natural fit.

The APRL’s missions are to preserve philatelic research and literature, and make resources widely accessible through APRL digital. Why are these important to the future of philately?

A key to making philately interesting is to be able to understand and tell the story behind the stamp or postal history artifact in your hand. Without access to the published (or in some cases unpublished research notes) collectors are left to “make it up on the fly” or conduct their own duplicative and increasingly difficult original research. As most people are not able to visit Bellefonte regularly, online digital access to resources is a way to democratize the information and allow more people to enjoy the hobby as we do.

Do you have any stories about using the APRL and its resources?

To me, the most fun and rewarding way to use the APRL is by visiting in person and browsing the stacks, many of which are organized by collecting interest. For my collection, the Swiss section is most relevant, and even though the APRL’s catalog is online, sometimes I’ve made new discoveries through browsing and happenstance. But, I do not live close to Bellefonte so I’ve also borrowed

Swiss reference books by mail (including once when I had misplaced my own copy – has that never happened to you?). And by telephone and email, Scott Tiffney and his team have quickly answered questions using the resources available on the spot.

Why should readers consider supporting the APRL and its missions?

We are fortunate to have generous members who have allowed the APS and APRL to complete the 20-year buildout of the American Philatelic Center and retire the related mortgage debt. So, we can occupy our society work, exhibit, and meeting spaces and the library “rent free.” That is a major accomplishment.

Now we must turn to the growth of the library’s endowment funds that will allow it to continue to serve the philatelic public in an economically sustainable way while keeping membership dues affordable for all.

Please share a few words about yourself, your philatelic involvement, etc.

My story may sound familiar. My

Aunt Betty Pollock got me started with the gift of a children’s stamp collecting kit for my eighth birthday. My recollection is that the worldwide album had about 100 pages! In high school, I started a collection of Portugal and colonies stamps because they were attractive, exotic, and affordable. Later, after my first trip to Europe, I began a collection of Switzerland’s stamps because I had enjoyed visiting its mountain scenery and Swiss stamps are also quite attractive although less exotic, and in some instances, less affordable.

Since then, Switzerland has been my main focus but I never met a stamp I didn’t like so I maintain a short set of Blue Scott Internationals for “emergencies.” I enjoy my memberships in the APS and APRL and several local clubs and specialist societies. Following my professional retirement, I trade duplicates on eBay, HipStamp, and Delcampe with the mission “to help people get more fun out of collecting stamps and postal history artifacts.”

2021 - Bobby Liao

A Vooys membership is a pledge of support for the APRL. What does the library mean to you?

For more than 50 years, the APRL has successfully maintained and provided public access to a wealth of philatelic reference and resource materials. I would like to see APRL continue its mission to expand its collection, preserve history for future generations, and to make it even easier to access the knowledge online. The APRL’s missions are to preserve philatelic research and literature, and make resources widely accessible through APRL digital. Why are these important to the future of philately?

Not only should the APRL make the resources digital and more widely accessible, but also encourage more historians and researchers to contribute their knowledge to the library and hence grow the knowledge base for the greater community. Furthermore, I could see the APRL provide an online forum for collaboration beyond published materials,

and facilitate exchange and discussions among philatelists and historians. Please share a few words about yourself, your philatelic involvement, etc.

As a volunteer and the chair of the APS Translation Committee, I have become acquainted with many philatelists with diverse interests. Through their dedication in doing research for an article or

an exhibit, or to just simply document an item in their collection, I have gained a deeper appreciation of the philatelic community for their expertise and passion.

It’s not just those who have sent in requests and shared their findings, but also those who are volunteer translators that not only provided their generous time

2022 - Brian Birch

Vooys membership is a pledge of support for the APRL. What does the library mean to you?

In the early 1970s I joined the Security Endorsement and Perfin Society (now the Perfin Society) and soon became its librarian. I soon realized that in order to grow the library I needed to know what had been published and what was currently being published. This led me to confine my literature interests to bibliography, indexes and other guides to the literature but not the monographs and handbooks as by then I had just about given up collecting stamps.

The first problem with bibliography is to determine what has been published –remember this is before the all-pervasive personal computer and the internet.

It seemed to me that the answer was to find which were the major philatelic libraries and, if possible, obtain copies of their library lists. Accordingly, I found and became a member of as many organizations with major libraries as possible. Although most of them replied to me in very friendly terms it was made clear that they had a librarian and a volunteer helper or two and could not provide a library service to anyone at a distance. The one shining star in this firmament was the American Philatelic Research Li-

and linguistic assistance but also shared their additional insight and knowledge.

I enjoy and look forward to working with APS members with their philatelic translation requests and urge more volunteers to join us on the Translation Committee.

brary, which actually had an employee to answer letters and provide photocopies (nowadays scans) to those too far away to visit.

Over the years I have ordered and received copies of hundreds of articles which were not easily available to me in the UK (now France). Without this assistance I would not have been able to complete as many articles as I have done. Without the assistance of the American Philatelic Research Library, my book The Fathers of Philately Inscribed on the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists, published by the Royal Philatelic Society London in

1999, would be missing quite a number of its 2,000 or so references.

The American Philatelic Research Library’s missions are to preserve philatelic research and literature, and make resources widely accessible through APRL Digital. Why are these important to the future of philately?

Preserving the literature and archives of philately and making them available to researchers like myself is absolutely essential. However, I have not found that American Philatelic Research Library Digital is a useful facility for making them available.

For example, I have subscribed to the Philatelic Literature Review for slightly less than 50 years and have all of the issues back to No. 1 of 1942 as a bound run. However, since I moved to France, I no longer have easy access to my binder in the UK and the volumes from 2014 are not bound.

Earlier this year I needed an issue from the unbound volumes and naturally that one was missing (i.e. misplaced) from my bookcase. My need being urgent, and following an abortive search through the piles on my desk, I decided to seek the information I required using APRL Digital. A search of the Philatelic Literature Review brought me an information overload of useless references, not the list of digitized copies of the Philatelic Literature Review I expected. After further abortive attempts I simply gave up as I don’t have time to waste on trying to learn the system. Instead, I simply ordered a copy of the missing issue from research assistant Marsha Garman. Perhaps those younger than I will have more patience and luck than I have.

Do you have any stories about using the APRL and its resources?

For many years I sent my ad hoc want lists to the APRL and received many of the items back quite quickly. I kept lists on paper of the items I required and ticked them off on receipt and re-listed the items that were not provided for sourcing elsewhere. Eventually, I became overloaded with paper and decided that future lists would be sent digitally and to further make my life easy, the lists would be numbered. I am now up to list number 81. Given that my lists generally contain between 10 and 20 items, it is easy to see just how many items I have ordered from the APRL, generally with a success rate of well greater than 50 percent.

Why should readers consider supporting the APRL and its missions?

Most philatelic libraries are run on a shoestring. Even the city of Munich has recently slashed the budget of its philatelic section and given its librarian additional duties. Philatelic societies are in a worse situation as they generally have to provide the funds for their libraries from the subscription income. Any philatelist who professes to carry out research needs the support of the APRL and has a responsibility to ensure that its services are available for future generations of philatelists.

Please share a few words about yourself, your philatelic involvement, etc.

I began to collect stamps at the age of 9 when our father gave my older brother and me a stamp album and a packet of stamps each. However, it was not for another 10 years or so, in the early 1970s, that I became interested in philatelic literature. It took me another 10 years before I realized that it was impossible for me to collect every single piece of literature. Thereafter, I specialized in bibliography, indexes and other guides to the

literature but not the monographs and handbooks as by then I had given up collecting stamps.

By this time, I was busy working in a metal heat treatment company some 180 miles away from the only two major libraries in London (National Philatelic Society and Royal Philatelic Society London), I nevertheless joined both societies and visited them whenever I could.

I bought bulk lots of literature and donated the unwanted items by the boxload to the National Philatelic Society. Eventually this became untenable as the librarian required that I send a list so that he could pick and choose what he wanted. This multiple handling was simply too much work and I moved my donations to the Royal Philatelic Society London, which had no such strictures. (I

can’t help but observe that the APRL has just introduced this rule – it obviously doesn’t want any donations from me.) Whenever I was in London I used to help out in the library as much as I could to the extent that in the mid-1990s I was co-opted onto the Library Committee. So, for the next 25 years I helped out at the library during the two or three weeks a year I could make it to the library. This only ended in 2018 when I moved permanently to France.

Fortunately, having built up a good working relationship with each new librarian and the head of the archives, I was allowed to take work home to complete there. In this way I transcribed the Sir Edward Denny Bacon and the Anthony Buck Creeke Jr. indexes as well as the correspondence for the archives.

Stamp Hunting: A Modern Review

Ronald E. Lesher

Arecent rereading of Stamp Hunting leds me to fondly recommend this book to all stamp collectors, regardless of what you collect. We all hunt for additions to our collections and we all seek dealers who spend time hunting down items to offer us.

Lewis Robie was a traveling salesman for the J. Elwood Lee Co. in the late 1890s. He wrote about his buying proprietary stamps still attached to old medicines and how he sold these stamps to collectors in Stamp Hunting, published in 1898.

For those of us who collect private die proprietary stamps, we will probably never know how many of our prized possessions once were found by Robie while visiting stores that sold the products of J. Elwood Lee Co. It is difficult to know whether Robie found it more important to find these old proprietary stamps than sell his company’s products.

In one of Robie’s visits in search of proprietary stamps, a doctor takes him into a back room where his boy is described as a stamp crank. Robie describes what he was shown on the wall:

“There was a big picture of George Washington, fully three times the natural size, made out of Washington heads cut out of ten cent 1847, catalogued four dollars

each. By actual count there were six hundred and eighty-six of them, and the eyes were from the New York stamp, a larger head of Washington. You understand the boy had cut out the little round heads, and pasted them on the wall so it was a perfect big head of Washington. The druggist said his father left the stamps on his old correspondence and his son conceived the idea, which he thought was pretty good. I didn’t say anything, and am keeping the place a secret, but the next time I

get there I am going to buy that side of the wall if I have to tear down the drug store. That picture intact will be something that can’t be matched at a stamp exhibit.

Is this story true? Are all the stories we stamp collectors tell true? Regardless, it makes a great read.

I suspect that we revenue stamp collectors also have Robie to thank for urging his employer, J. Elwood Lee Co., to order their own private die proprietary stamps in five denominations (shown), albeit they were only used in the final year of the proprietary tax, which ended

June 30, 1901.

We are indeed grateful to Kenneth Trettin and the late Richard Riley for reprinting this entertaining and informative tome in 2016.

The book was published in 1898 by Donohue, Henneberry & Co., of Chicago and is available for loan from the APRL. It also is available to read for free online via the Internet Archive (https:// aps.buzz/StampHunting). The reprint is available from Eric Jackson for $12.50, plus shipping and from Richard Friedberg.

The J. Elwood Lee Co. private die proprietary stamps, Scott RS290-RS294.

RUSSIAN SPOKEN HERE

Rossica Society has much to offer and welcomes new members and research

Ray Pietruska

One of the questions asked in the 3rd Quarter 2021 issue of the Philatelic Literature Review was about specialized society libraries. The question was: Are you a member of a state or specialty society? What kind of resources are available for your area of collecting, whether books, articles, websites, or catalogs, and why are they useful?

I believe our society’s library is kind of special but then I am the president of the Rossica Society of Russian Philately. Rossica has been active in the United States since 1954 and was founded back in the 1930s by White Russian expatriates, first in Europe until 1939 then in China until 1941.

The collecting community of Russian philately is as geo -

The word behind the title is the word Russian in the Russian language.

graphically broad as its diaspora. There were very active groups at one time in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Today, there are still very active groups in Europe, Great Britain and Russia, as well has here in the United States.

Because of this diversity, Russian philatelic literature comes in multiple languages: Russian, English and several other European languages. What started out as a primary Russian-speaking community has now, in the West, developed into an English-speaking membership with a significant body of Russian philatelic literature in English. Since 1992, with the fall of the Soviet Union, an ever-increasing volume of philatelic literature in Russian has also become available in the West.

Due to the large body of English language literature, a new collector interested in Russian philately does

not have to be able to read Russian. I did not when I started, and while I’ve learned the Russian alphabet to be able to read postmarks and philatelic names, I still don’t. One should learn the alphabet and find a good philatelic dictionary that includes Russian key terms, like “block, sheet” and “colors”. Just enjoy the stamps- there are more than enough references in English to help you for years, and over time, you’ll learn enough philatelic Russian to handle your chosen specialty.

With more than 6,000 stamps, a new collector of Russia needs a good catalog in English to start. The Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue is OK, as that is the primary catalog dealers use and its numbering system is used throughout the U.S.

The biggest weakness in the Scott catalog is that many of the civil war

republics and states, as well as the new Commonwealth of Independent Republics, are not grouped with Russia. Almost all the stamp-issuing states used Russian stamps or overprinted them. A better choice is the Stanley Gibbons Russian catalog which includes most of these states in the same volume. For the general Russian stamp collector that will be all that they need. But, as they specialize into different periods or subjects, their choices of research material expand exponentially. That’s where access to the Rossica library helps.

The objective of the Rossica library is to collect and make available this body of specialized knowledge to our members. In keeping with the library’s mission to promote Russian philately, it collects Russian philatelic material from around the world and maintains a large collection of both English and non-English material.

The library has a volunteer librarian who spends a significant amount of his time managing this library and responding to member requests for books and articles on a vast array of subjects. He helps guide the researcher on what is available in their subject area; first in English and then to the Russian if need be. He will provide short Russian language items in a for-

mat that can be easily translated using Google Translate. However, at this time Rossica does not have a translation service.

To help preserve material, significant amounts of literature are stored on the Google Drive Cloud and our librarian has been sending digital copies of requested material either by email, if it a short article, or by link to the cloudlocated copy if it is a long one. This keeps scarce material safe by not having to send it through the mail. It is also a whole lot quicker than the mail.

The society has been publishing an award-winning journal twice a year since 1954. We also maintain complete runs of all the English language journals as well as ones in other language. In the past year we have also created a Facebook group for all collectors, both members and non-members to ask questions and exchange ideas and information.

As I noted earlier, Russian philately is broad, it includes Imperial Russia, its local post system, Zemstvos; Offices in China and Turkey, the civil war armies, and various short-lived republics that existed from 1917 to 1921. There are the Soviet period with the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR), Far Eastern Republic and Soviet republics that were merged into the Soviet Union. The USSR period, including WWII and since 1992, the Russian Federation and the Commonwealth of

Independent Nations. You have periods of inflation, almost continuous censorship, and military mail, all documented in the postal history of Russia. There is a vast array of revenues from all periods and several stamp-issuing states.

There are several areas that are fertile ground for continued research. The modern area since 1992, has many opportunities. We have big holes in formal documentation on postal rates beyond postcards and letters. There are services that produced printed matter, package rates, local surcharges for paying the local post offices. Several of these areas, such as express mail, go back to the Soviet period. The postal rates from several of the new republics are still unknown and must be worked out by the mail available. Surcharged stamps and postal stationery are poorly documented. Many are fantasies but some were used locally by the postal authorities to move the mail. Imperial Russia, the RSFSR, and Zemstvos are being heavily researched, and the results are being documented in journals and books.

Russian philately is a vast area to collect; there is still so much to be learned. A major asset for the collector is the Rossica Society. Membership gives its members access to all the tools we have, the journal, the library, books for sale, a website with a Question-andAnswer forum and now a Facebook forum.

A Tribute to Stanley M. Bierman

Paul M. Holland

WhenStanley M. Bierman, M.D., died on January 21 at the age of 86, the world of philately lost a philatelic scholar, masterful raconteur, and an important part of its institutional memory.

Although he was a prominent physician, Stanley Bierman worked diligently at assembling one of the world’s greatest private philatelic libraries, putting it to good use as a tool for research on philately’s greatest stamp collectors.

Perhaps even more importantly, Bierman also actively worked to preserve philatelic oral history by initiating a series of insightful video interviews with some of the most important living figures in philately. He is shown interviewing Raymond Weill on May 26, 1986, in Chicago at AMERIPEX ’86. Without Bierman’s strenuous efforts, much philatelic history and many fascinating anecdotes would have been lost forever.

Bierman’s masterful 2016 summary article on “Philatelic Literature, Its Lore and Heritage” is available in the Philatelic Literature Review. Furthermore, the surprisingly entertaining and fascinating story of how Bierman’s own philatelic library came to be formed is recounted in earlier PLR articles published in 1984-1985.

Having traveled a great deal during my scientific career, I first became aware of Bierman’s book on The World’s Greatest Stamp Collectors at a Smithsonian Museum Shop in an airport before flying home from East Coast meetings in the early 1990s. It’s not only an enjoyable read, but is carefully documented with

more than 420 references.

On another trip, I met Raymond Weill at his stamp shop on Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans and enjoyed talking with him. As soon as I learned that Bierman had conducted detailed interviews with Weill and other famous philatelists and that these were available on DVD for the benefit of the

The World’s Greatest Stamp Collectors.

Stanley Bierman (left) interviews Raymond Weill.

American Philatelic Society, I bought them, greatly enjoying the many anecdotes that are now permanently preserved.

Finally, I’ll never forget the occasions when I was invited to visit Bierman at his home in Beverly Hills for philatelic holiday brunches. After showing me parts of his famous library, we would sit outside by the swimming pool across from the Japanese tea house with the other guests, and talk about stamps until it was time for the luncheon. After more “stamp talk” we would gather inside for a showing of one of Bierman’s interviews with commentary by the interlocutor himself.

Stanley Bierman’s passing leaves a void in the world of philately. We are fortunate that he has left us such a rich philatelic legacy.

Resources

Stanley M. Bierman, The World’s Greatest Stamp Collectors, Linn’s Stamp News, 1990.

Stanley M. Bierman, “Philatelic Literature, It’s Lore and Heritage,” Philatelic Literature Review, Vol. 65, 1st quarter 2016.

Stanley M. Bierman, “The Bierman Philatelic Library,” Philatelic Literature Review, Vol. 33, 3rd quarter 1984; “More on The Bierman Philatelic Library,” PLR, Vol. 34, 2nd quarter 1985.

Stanley M. Bierman, “Famous Philatelist Interviews” at https://learning.stamps.org/lms-learner/ecommerce/products/videos-famous-philatelist-interviews.

Call for Writers

The Philatelic Literature Review depends on APRL and APS members, who provide much of the content of this journal. We would like to encourage more people to join our roster of philatelic writers for the Philatelic Literature Review. The journal publishes a wide range of articles, on topics that include the following: how to conduct philatelic research; old and new philatelic literature; archives and library collections; book reviews; writing and research advice; profiles of philatelic figures; the future of philatelic research, and more. If you have an idea for an article or are interested in becoming a regular contributor, please send an email to plrarticle@stamps.org. For information about APS writing guidelines, visit aps.buzz/writeap.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

We encourage readers to send their comments, questions and feedback to the Philatelic Literature Review. Your feedback, questions, concerns and suggestions help us to improve the journal.

Submission of a letter implies consent to publish, unless specifically prohibited by the sender. The decision of whether to publish is made by the editorial staff of the Philatelic Literature Review

Generally, letters will be published unless determined to be offensive, disrespectful, libelous, slanderous or not chiefly related to the stamp hobby.

The opinions expressed in a Letter to the Editor are those of the author and not the Philatelic Literature Review or APRL. We do not publish or accept requests for the publication of anonymous letters.

To allow more Letters to the Editor, you are respectfully requested to limit submissions to 500 words or less. If your submission is longer, the editorial team will ask you to resubmit a shorter version, or provide you with a copy of an edited version to review prior to publication.

Submit your letters to plrarticle@stamps.org, subject line “Letter to the Editor” or mail a typewritten copy to Letter to the Editor, The Philatelic Literature Review, 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte PA 16823.

Writer’s additions enhanced article

Abhishek Bhuwalka is my hero. For the interview with me (published in the fourth quarter 2021 issue of the Philatelic Literature Review) he made so many contributions (endnotes, many corrections and suggestions and photos) that I suggested he add his name to the interview.

In time, his PLR articles will certainly deserve their own handbook. Us old timers can rest easy as long as scholars as Abhishek remain.

William Hagan  Vancouver, Washington

Errata

The Frank Walton memoriam in the second quarter of the Philatelic Literature Review was written by Nicola Davies, head of collections at the Royal Philatelic Society London. From the second quarter of the Philatelic Literature Review, Figure 9 was inadvertently omitted from “The Crusading Riberio of Indian Philatelist,” and is shown here. The caption for the image is: Council of the Bombay Philatelic Society from 1895. (Photo courtesy of The Royal Philatelic Society’s Philatelic Collections.) We regret the error.

Great American Stamp Show 2022

August 25-28, 2022

Literature Palmares

We are pleased to publish the results of the Great American Stamp Show 2022 literature competition. If your show holds a literature competition, please send the results to PLRarticle@stamps.org for inclusion in a future issue.

Grand and Large Gold

British South Africa Company King

George V Admiral Stamps 1913-1924

David Spivack

Reserve Grand

Mails of the 1861-1867 European Intervention in Mexico

Steven C. Walske

The Panama One-Cent Balboa Invert

From the American Bank Note Company

David Zemer

ARTICLES

Gold

An Oddity Uncovers a Short-lived Registry Plan

Nancy B. Clark

Large Vermeil

Fort Oglethorpe, GA, Internee's Postcard:

Written from a Spy to a Spy?

Nancy B. Clark

The Sinking of the P.R.R. Ferry Chicago, October 31, 1899

Nancy B. Clark

Oops! Mistakes and Curiosities in the Design of Tennis Stamps and Postmarks

Norman F. Jacobs

Military Fort Myers from 1850

Vernon R. Morris, Jr MD

How to Collect Women's Suffrage

Melanie G. Rogers

"Local Usage" Prevails for Name of Town and Post Office

Steve Swain

Vermeil

Buddhist Dances

Lokeswara Rao Madiraju

St. Joseph, Florida

Jack Malarkey

Cairo Hotel Maxicard Analytics and Pyramids Analytics

Sun-Yu Ng

Silver

Corner Cards of Lititz, Pennsylvania

Richard Colberg

National Parks of USA on Stamps

Lokweswara Rao Madiraju

Silver Bronze

Little River P.O. Keeps Town Memory

Alive

Dan Maddalino

ELECTRONIC

Large Vermeil

Annotated Bibliography of Cuban Philatelic Literature

Ernesto Cuesta

Vermeil

Pennsylvania Postal History Society Website - www.paphs.org

Pennsylvania Postal History Society

HANDBOOK

Large Gold

The Foreign Mail Issue of Mexico 18791883

Richard Daffner

Also awarded the APS Research Medal

Large Vermeil

International Institute of AgricultureOfficial Mail 1910-1946

Fran Adams

Vermeil

The Postal History of Saint Simons Island, Georgia

Large Silver

O.C. Marsh, Chief Red Cloud and the Thunder Horses

Fran Adams

Silver

April 1945 in Patriotic Covers

Al Raddi

SOCIETY JOURNALS

Large Gold

Postal History Journal

Diane Deblois & Robert Dalton Harris

Gold

Rossica Journal

William Velvel Moskoff

The Airpost Journal

Vickie Canfield Peters

Forerunners

PSGSA

Mexicana

Michael D. Roberts

NJPH, Journal of the New Jersey Postal History Society

Jean R. Walton

Large Vermeil

Topical Time

American Topical Association

Also awarded the ATA Study Unit

Journal Award 1st Place

Canal Zone Philatelist

Canal Zone Study Group

The Israel Philatelist

Donald A. Chafetz

Journal of the United Nations Philatelists, Inc. Year 2021

Blanton Clement Jr.

Florida Postal History Journal

Florida Postal History Journal

Journal of Sports Philately

Mark Maestrone

Also awarded the ATA Study Unit

Journal Award 2nd Place

The Birth of New Jersey's Post

Vernon R. Morris Jr, MD

The Pennsylvania Postal Historian

Pennsylvania Postal History Society

Vermeil

The Philatelic Communicator

David Crotty

Meter Stamp Society Bulletin Vol. 73

2021

David Crotty

Haiti Philately

Wolfgang Windel

Enophilatelica

The Wine on Stamps Study Unit

Also awarded the ATA Study Unit

Journal Award 2nd Place

La Catastrophe

Wreck & Crash Mail Society

Large Silver

The New CartoPhilatelist

The CartoPhilatelic Society

Also awarded the ATA Study Unit

Journal Award 3rd Place

Philatelic Gourmet

Gastronomy on Stamps Study Unit

Also awarded the ATA Study Unit

Journal Award 3rd Place

Armenian Philatelic Association

Journal

Igor Grigorian

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviews are written by PLR readers and contributors. We welcome new authors to write reviews of books (or other resources - articles, journals, monographs, videos and more). Contact Susanna Mills at smills@stamps.org to learn more and discuss parameters, or the PLR editorial team at PLRarticle@stamps.org to submit a book review.

EGYPT

The Mohamed Aly Post – The True Origin of the Egyptian Vice Royal Post (2020), by Mahmoud Ramadan. Hardbound, dust jacket, 83 pages, color illustrations throughout, negative seals. ISBN-13: 978-977-9089869. €25 ($26) plus postage; available from virginstamps@gmail.com and info@vaccari.it.

After the publication of Peter A.S. Smith’s Egypt Stamps and Postal History (1999), the author of this book was able to add much information to the four pages of Smith’s chapter on the Mohamed Aly Post.

In due course, useful covers from the Biolato collection surfaced in a Lugano auction. Afterwards, other items were happily acquired and by 2015, the completeness of Dr. Mahmoud Ramadan’s collection was achieved much to his satisfaction. Shortly after, a Saudi collector sold a batch of truly breathtaking covers. At that point it became clear that it was time to put away the checkbook and get serious about writing a book.

Mohamed Aly returned to Egypt in March 1801 as a member of Captain Hussein’s troops who helped the British drive the French out of Egypt. He participated in the battles between the English and the Ottomans on one side, and the French on the other and gained a great

reputation. Eventually, the French were expelled and Mohamed Aly was promoted to major general.

After that, he was appointed chief of the general command and the head of the ruler’s palace. In July 1805 he became the ruler of Egypt as viceroy; he was a prudent reformer and introduced important administrative and economic reforms; he also pursued an expansionistic strategy. He died in Alexandria on August 2, 1849. Historians have described him as the “Father of Modern Egypt.”

After his ascent to the very top, Aly Pasha made repeated efforts to modernize Egypt; some were successful, others were needed to pave the road to further

heights. From the beginning of his rule he understood the importance of communications both for effective administrative and strategic reasons.

The quantity of mail that has survived was initially rather modest; however, the 2016 Asyut Find provided better insight into the Mohamed Aly Post (MAP) and its continued activity even after the Khedival Post was established in 1865 followed a year later by the introduction of adhesive postage stamps. (A stash of letters found during the demolition of a house in Asyut was dubbed the “Asyut Find,” says a note published in a 2017 journal from the Egypt Study Circle. It contains the correspondence of a merchant family from the 1850s to the 1880s and “it has given new insights into the workings of the Khedival Post,” the journal said.)

At that point a “Regolamento Interno delle Vice Reali Poste Egiziane” (internal regulations of the vice-royal Egyptian posts) was disseminated within the postal administration. The publication, as the author points out, includes some valuable information; it does, however, omit any mention of Mohamed Aly Post. It

came into effect on January 1, 1866. The author is very firm in pointing out that some of the early articles about MAP and Vice-Royal postal service in general do not mention their sources, and as such lack the desired reliability. In 1822, orders were finally implemented about telegraphic signaling, nevertheless the urgent need to establish a regular postal service remained. As early as 1820 correspondence and postal parcels were delivered by two reliable camel riders known as Hamad and el Badihi. The caravans between Cairo and Alexandria also delivered mail but the many stops in various villages slowed down the delivery; for urgent mail, a paid camel estafette (dispatch rider) was also available on demand.

Aly Pasha correspondence and official mail had top priority and fastest mode of delivery, even for mail to as far as Khartoum was conveyed post haste. The viceroy’s indirect control could slow postal operations. Nevertheless, things improved when the two camel riders were promoted to civil servants. The documentation regarding the establishment of the Vice-Royal Post Service has so far

eluded researchers. On the other hand, an order dated April 22, 1825 and appointing the brother of el Badihi as head of the postal service has been found. Greater efficiency was implemented and the Alexandria-Cairo (and vice versa) couriers’ journey was to be completed in 48 hours.

The role and modus operandi of the Posta Europea also is discussed; additionally the delivery of governmental mail and the rapport with the Posta Europea are examined in great detail. The chapter on the negative (intaglio) seals is well documented and discussed in an uncomplicated presentation.

Very useful background information relating to various topics is provided before delving into the Asyut Find; the railway services are also outlined at the end of this chapter. Eight pages are entirely devoted to the negative intaglio seals type B, the degree of rarity of each of them is included in the illustrated listing of each of them.

The concluding chapters discuss a variety of very interesting topics: how to identify a MAP letter; weights, rates and fees (no easy task!), and the next phase of research of this fascinating facet of postal history.

This book is a kind deed, captivating, and lavishly produced; it is an inspiration to collectors who wish to embark on a postal history collection of Egypt. It is indispensable to both beginners and scholars.

Reviewed by Giorgio Migliavacca

FRANCE

Letters of the Grande Armée (Lettres de la Grande Armée ), History of the mail organization inside the greatest army of the XIX century (2021) by Paolo Bianchi. Hardbound, 8½ inches

by 12 inches, color, dust jacket, 144 pages, 182 color illustrations, 1 map; in French and English. Published by Paolo Bianchi and the Musée des Timbres et de Monnaies de Monaco, translation by Chris King.  €80 (approx. $82), including postage,  for purchase contact patrick@maselis.be The author of this splendid monograph is well known for his book, Postal History of Eritrea, and for his monographs, Victor Victoria and History of the Postal Service in Italian Somalia from its origins to 1941. He is described as an eclectic collector who has largely focused on African colonies and has won several large gold medals with his collections of Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Sardinia. During the last decade he has spent considerable time on the study of the postal services of the Grande Armée, to provide new data and detailed information mainly on the second Grande Armée during the Russian Campaign of 1812, a most difficult area of research due to the rarity of the pieces available to

postal history collectors.

Having had the privilege of knowing the author some 50 years ago when he collected Napoleonic covers of the Italian conquered “departments,” as well as Confederate States, I have seen his ascent to higher heights seldom reached by other scholars.

Published in 2021, the bicentenary year of Napoleon’s death, this volume has widened the wealth of information available to historians and postal historians. The names and volumes of De Franck and Albert Reinhardt are the first to come to our minds about great scholars who have explored the same area.

Bianchi, on the other hand, has brought to light new postmarks and as pointed out by Maselis in his foreword to this book, “Bianchi takes us to the heart  of the often tragic events that took place on the battlefields. He uses

his publication to highlight all the horrors of war. In particular, the rare letters posted during the retreat from Russia are extremely moving and send shivers down the spine  of the reader with their accounts of human dramas and the inescapable presence of death.” The rarity of letters sent during the retreat is explained by the author, who quotes relevant comments by senders that would clearly indicate that mail was confiscated, stolen  or intercepted by the Cossacks.

In his foreword, Bianchi highlights the allure of the military postal history of the Napoleonic era: “The amazing excellence and system of the Grande Armée postal organisation, is for us intelligible only through the letters, always including the text, which shows marks and manuscript  notes and numbers.”

The nightmarish retreat is summed up by a letter from Lieutenant Dupont who

stated that “I myself who am back can’t work out how I got away because I spent two months eating only horse meat more raw than you can believe ... out of 350 men that left with our Regiment we barely returned from Moscow with 50 men.”

The book is richly illustrated and ends with some precious and well-researched sections devoted to first and second Grande Armée free-frank handstamps (used or handwritten on letters sent free of charge in observance of official regulations); a list of postmarks of the Second Grande Armée, and a complete bibliography. Equally most useful is the section providing an 18-page list of the postmarks of the Second Grande Armée, including related déboursé postmarks; and last but not least, an exhaustive bibliography.

Reviewed by Giorgio Migliavacca

IONIAN ISLANDS (Greece)

Le Isole Jonie, Storia Postale e momenti della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, 1940-1945 (2021), (Ionian Islands and moments of the Second World War), by Luigi Sirotti. Perfect bound, 8½ inches by 12¾ inches, 198 pages, several maps, color illustrations throughout, limited edition of 200 numbered copies, in Italian. Supplement of evaluations of covers, postcards and stamps illustrated, including a listing of the tariffs. Published by the author, Milan. €70 (approx. $72), plus postage. Available from Vaccari at info@vaccari.it

The author of this volume is well known to philatelists and postal history collectors for his many books, articles, catalogs, and monographs on specialized and often challeng-

ing aspects of Italian philately and postal history. Like his previous book, British Occupation of Former Italian Colonies, he has also relied on the splendid collections of Nuccio Taroni and other major collectors of the brief Italian occupation of the Ionian Islands.

Traditionally called the Heptanese (Seven) Islands (including many smaller islands), the Ionian Islands were occupied by Italy on April 28, 1941 after the German occupation of Greece. In 1943, the Germans replaced the Italians, and deported the centuries-old Jewish community of Corfu to their deaths. By 1944, most of the islands were under the control of the EAM/ELAS resistance movement, and they have remained in general a stronghold of left-wing sentiment ever since.

Sirotti devotes several pages to the various phases of the Italian occupation and from the very start he keeps his eyes on postal communications and military, political and postal developments.

A chapter is entirely devoted to the hand and letterpress overprints with a wealth of illustrations, including censor marks and censor labels. We are informed by Sirotti that “during the Italian and German occupations, as evinced by careful examination of the frankings, the tariffs underwent numerous changes while some accessory services were discontinued.”

During the early period of occupation Greek postal stationery franked with Greek stamps with Italian occupation overprints were used; meanwhile, in early June 1941, a civilian censor office was activated at Corfu by Italian authorities for the purpose of censoring all domestic and foreign-bound mail of the occupied islands. It also operated as gathering and sorting center, facilitating mail exchange with various European countries. All related censor labels and censor marks are illustrated and discussed in great detail.

More space is given to the Cefalonia and Itaca overprints and their rarity when used on mail to Italy and Greece, The use of unoverprinted Greek stamps from Corfu to Italy and Greece and related level of rarity is neatly presented in a chart.

As Italy occupied Zakintos (Zante) it began to hand overprint Greek stamps with the boxed, four lines, “Occupazione Militare Di Zante 1-5-XIX.” From April to August 1941, the Zante post office also handled mail from Italian troops deployed in the seven Ionian Islands.

The use of stamps with the boxed four lines overprint on Greek stamps on mail to Italy and Greece and related level of rarity is neatly presented in a chart. The subject matter is discussed in great detail in the ensuing pages.

The technical details and complexi-

ties of the Argostoli overprint with movable fonts beginning with the May to September 1941 use on Greece postal stationery processed by the Italian field post office is examined in its four distinctive types.

New postal censorship offices were opened between September 1941 and September 1943 at Cefalonia, Itaca, Santa Maura, and Zante.

A chapter covers the plethora of regulations in their original text regarding censorship in colonies and territories; this section alone is very precious to the specialist.

The research is very impressive and detailed; the production is lavish to say the least. Keep in mind that only 200 copies have been printed.

Reviewed by Giorgio Migliavacca

IRELAND

Irish Philately: This Was The Year That Was – A Compendium of Irish Philately (2021). Volume 1, 1971-1999; Volume 2, 2000-2020. By Brian Warren, Eddie Fitzgerald and Paddy Smithers; edited by Phillip Kane. Softcover. Vol. 1, 519 pages; Vol. 2, 468 pages. 8¼ inches by 11½ inches. Published by the Irish Philatelic Circle and Brian Warren. Price €45 (approx. $46), plus shipping to STAMPA, The Irish Philatelic Circle, P.O. Box 12624, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16, Ireland, http:// www.irishphil.com. All payments to STAMPA.

This is a collection of 49 years of chronicling all phases of Irish philately and a goldmine for any collector seeking to find information on postal affairs in Ireland.

This hefty effort began as a yearly summary in Irish Philately by Paddy

Smithers in 1974, and expanded by Eddie Fitzgerald and Brian Warren in subsequent years, with input from other collectors. The subtitle, “This Was The Year That Was,” stems from a popular satirical television show of the period.

The two-volume set of 987 pages is well illustrated in color, showing details of items, and clearly written. While it is not a catalog, it lists all definitive, commemorative and special stamps, with information on details such as gum type, perforations and papers. Since these columns were written as they occurred, it is easy to see changes and varieties. Booklets, postal statienary, postmarks, cachets, self-adhesive and automated dispensing are covered. Even items such as Christmas cards, Santa envelopes and the expansion to modern distribution equipment are included along with many other areas.

One of the most significant areas is

that of the 1984 transition of the Post Office from the government Ministry of Post and Telegraphs to a private, albeit governmentowned, company, called An Post, which is Gaelic for “The Post.” This was a transition from an agency that had been locked in the 19th century of bureaucracy and manual operation to a 21st century automated function. It has meant the loss of many small postal agencies dating from the days of the horse but it has increased efficiency to the point where 98 percent of the in-country mail is delivered in less than 48 hours.

The change has also seen more stamps in widely varied areas, and modern themes in place of staid, conservative topics.

These books are a must read for anyone studying Irish philately, not only witnessing a major leap in philately, but also a major transition of a country that this year is celebrating its centenary of independence.

Reviewed by Raymond H. Murphy, president, Éire Philatelic Association

ITALY

Mail addressed from Italy to the foreign countries — 1 January 1863 — 31 March 1879 (2021), by Mario Mentaschi and Giovanni Nembrini. Hardbound, 8 inches by 11¾ inches), 212 pages, more than 250 color illustrations throughout, maps; in Italian and English. Published by Circolo Filatelico Bergamasco. €40 ($41), plus postage. Available from Vaccari (info@vaccari.it).

It is quite gratifying to see how phila-

telic and postal history literature is always on track with the latest research; it is also reassuring to see volumes made possible by the research of two or three scholars “combined.”

This book is written by Mario Mentaschi, a well-known name in postal history for his books which have garnered gold medals at various FIP international exhibitions; the co-author is Giovanni Nembrini, a keen collector of Italian postal history with emphasis on Italy 1850-1900; his collections have won grand prix and gold medals at national and international exhibitions while his articles have been published by Cursores and Vaccari magazine.

The introduction outlines the main subject of this volume: the complexities of unifying Italy not only politically but also postally. If there were obstacles and

difficulties in postal communications nationally, one can only imagine what was communicating internationally.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the exchange of mail between countries was largely regulated by bilateral postal agreements. But by the 1800s, bilateral agreements had become so complex that they began to impede the rapidly developing trade and commercial sectors. Order and simplification were needed by the international postal services.

On March 17, 1861, a Sunday, the Kingdom of Italy became a reality and the integration of various states was in itself a gigantic task. A valid remedy came on January 1, 1863 when the May 5, 1862 law setting new rules was adopted and enforced nationwide. At that point Italy was unified postally.

That turning point is also the starting moment of the postal history examined by this book with special attention to international mail rules, procedures and tariffs which, until June 1875, were based on postal conventions with foreign postal administrations. If no convention was signed with a given country the best practice was to seek the mediation of other countries like France and Great Britain.

Postal rates for international mail from July 1, 1875 to March 31, 1879 were regulated by a convention signed in Berne by General Postal Union (GPU) and 22 member countries which included Italy. This expansion of an organized postal network connected small and large businesses alike to customers everywhere.

More progress was made with the advent of the Universal Postal Union, whose convention was endorsed by 32 countries with effect from April 1, 1879. The Mentaschi-Nembrini monograph delves into the postal routes as well as the chronological evolution of the tariffs within each country.

A lengthy and well-articulated chapter examines the mail sent to other Italian states during the years leading to the unification and after, with special attention to Austrian Venetia, the Papal States, and the Republic of San Marino.

The next chapter focuses on mail from Italy to various foreign countries conveyed using various modalities depending on the location of the final destination. On the old continent, foreign countries were reachable using overland routes; for more distant destinations, such as Africa and Asia, sea routes were served by French and British packets and the Austrian Lloyd, which also connected with African countries facing the Mediterranean. Postal communications with the northern New World were served by British and American packets.

Central America and the West Indies were served by British and French packets. Postal communications with South America facing the Atlantic were facilitated by French packets. Countries facing the Pacific were served by British packets of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. Destinations beyond the Suez Canal were served by the P&O Steam Navigation Company and by French packets.

In most cases covers from the Nembrini collection exemplify tariffs and routes and means of conveyance; in other instances illustrations from other important collections were utilized to give the reader practical examples of what is being discussed.

Mail to European countries and territories is examined in great detail. the countries involved are: Austrian Empire, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Gibraltar, German States, Luxembourg, Norway, Russian Empire, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and United Kingdom.

Succeeding chapters cover mailing to places from the Mediterranean basin, the Atlantic coast, British colonies, North and South America and Asia.

To conclude there is an exhaustive table of postal rates, followed by indexes of currencies, contract packets, postal conventions, postal markings; as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

In short, this book will pay for itself: undoubtedly a must have.

Reviewed by Giorgio Migliavacca

ITALY

1770-1850 Trentino Alto Adige, Catalogo delle Timbrature (1770-1850 Trento Region and South Tyrol, Postmarks Catalogue) by Federico Borromeo. ISBN 978-88-945287-4-9. Color dust jacket, hardbound, 202 pages replete with illustrations in color and black and white, maps, and decrees; in Italian. Published by Post Horn, Milano 2022; €80 (approx. $80) (€50 for CIFO members), plus postage; available from the publisher (contact: segreteria@cifo.eu).

This new and most welcomed monograph brings us back to the seminal research of the late August Zoppelli, who published it in a book format that remained the standard reference on the subject matter for a few decades.

This reminds us that the research of the early scholars of postal history has yielded big returns for having undoubt-

edly inspired and encouraged later scholars to expand the research in a more systematic and scientific form; this book by Borromeo is a clear example of what I just said.

This encyclopedic author is well known for his articles and books on the stamps and postal history of the West Indies Antilles and his most useful 1994 book, The Post Offices from the  Cisalpina Republic to the [Napoleonic] Kingdom of Italy.”

As the author points out, “Tyrol and Trentino were, from time immemorial, in the possessions of the Habsburgs, and, in part, of the ecclesiastical principalities of Trento or Bressanone (Brixen), which were definitively secularized in 1803, following the Treaty of Lunéville.

“In fact, on 9 February 1801 a treaty between France and Austria was signed in Lunéville, and ratified by the First Consul Napoleon and by Emperor Francis II a few days later, and finally also by the Diet of Regensburg on 10th March 1801, which followed that of Campoformio, and which also provided for the secularization of the two bishopric principalities, assigning their possession to the Emperor of Austria.

“In both territories, mail was generally managed under a monopoly regime by the Thurn und Taxis family.”

The catalog of the postmarks of the Trento and South Tyrol regions is aimed at illustrating in a concise form the political and postal histories of the these regions whose territories are nowadays included in the autonomous region by the same name with special statute.

The present political and geographic framework, although going through varying and sometime dramatic vicissitudes,

dates back to the end of the Great War. If we look closer we may consider the Trentino like the last Italian ancient state, which was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy more than five decades after the end of the Risorgimento. After World War II, the Trento-South Tyrol, despite its travailed history, has found its autonomy, which renders justice to the minorities.

As far as postal history is concerned it must be noted that over a span of 80 years and in a mountainous and complex region, the author has assembled an unprecedented quantity of laws, political powers, languages, marks and measures.

The catalog itself includes the detailed listing of the postmarks found on mail processed by 52 post offices, each of them benefitting from a profile of the local history, while the postmarks are discussed one by one with a mouth-watering gallery of letters bearing them, including

one with the ante-litteram wording: “Ala — Tirolo Italiano.”

Having served in the Savoy Cavalry Regiment as paymaster of the Command Squadron in Meran, the reviewer is familiar with many of the localities where there was a post office in South Tyrol, all of which brings back fond memories.

Other important aspects deserving great attention include an overview of the private family archives (Menz, Salvadori, and Tambosi) that have survived and managed to get into the hands of caring collectors. The most famous of them, the Menz archive, was acquired in large part by a Bolzano Lombardy-Venetia collector; it was during one of my visits to his home in the early 1970s that he invited me to browse through the tens of thousands of letters carefully filed in an antique chest with more than 200 drawers: what an experience!

The Menz was a family of bankers and textile merchants, serving the public also as money changers. Their archive is now lovingly preserved at the premises of the Chamber of Commerce of Bolzano.

Another appealing chapter is the one delving into the mail from the Napoleonic

military campaigns that afflicted the area from 1796 to 1813. Indeed a turbulent period with a very complex postal history.

There is much more to this book; for example a very informative chapter on postal history, tariffs and postmarks, postal routes, the various phases of history, the detailed listing of handwritten place of provenance information on the address side of the outgoing mail, the free-frank handstamps accompanied by a detailed and informative listing in alphabetical order, registered mail and its auxiliary postmarks used during the various administrations also with a listing in alphabetical order; and dulcis in fundo an exhaustive listing of the various postmarks utilizing a rarity scale from very rare (RR) to very common. Each post office has also a listing of accessory handstamps such as registration, frontier, refund, postage paid etc.

A very useful bibliography concludes this impressive volume.

Whether you already collect this area or you are looking for new fields with rich harvests: this is postal history on a grand scale explained in plain language.

Reviewed by Giorgio Migliavacca

NEW BOOKS NOTED

The PLR publishes information received about new philatelic books. Send information about recent or upcoming publications for inclusion to Scott Tiffney at stiffney@ stamps.org or to 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte, PA 16823. The descriptions given herein are compiled from source material and often are directly taken from source descriptions.

Bangkok

British Consulate Post Office at Bangkok 1855 to 1885. By Michel J.R. Houde. Hardcover, 454 pages, 8½ inches by 12½ inches (22 centimeters by 32 cm). Publishes by the Stuart Rossiter Trust, 2021. £38 (approx. $46 U.S.) plus shipping at www.rossitertrust.com.

Bringing together all the information the author has discovered from more than 40 years of collecting, this resource presents an extensive look into the politics, the businesses, the people, the stamps and the postal history of the British Consulate Post Office in Bangkok. Also included are detailed studies of the “B” overprints, the cancellations and the forgeries, along with a census of all known covers.

Cape of Good Hope

Postal Officials of the Cape of Good Hope: Postal History and Philately of Southern Africa. By Franco Frescura. Softcover, 302 pages, 8 inches by 10 inches. Published by Phansi Museum Press, 2022. ISBN: 978-0-620959-247. $20 plus shipping at amazon.com. This resourceful work lists in table form all of the postmasters and other postal officials serving in the postal services of the Cape of Good Hope postal services from 1910. Date ranges and positions held are also included.

Ephemera

The Edge of Philately: Philatelic Specialists Look at Non-Traditional Philately and Its Ephemera. By David Piercey (editor). Softcover, 220-plus pages, 8½ inches by 11

inches. Published by the Philatelic Specialists Society of Canada, 2021. $78 (Canadian; approx. $61 U.S.) plus shipping at publications@ philatelicspecialistssociety.com

With its 22 chapters each written by different authors, the purpose of this anthology is to demonstrate a variety of esoteric aspects of the stamp hobby by sharing specialist studies. Some of the essays encompass a lighthearted sideline collection but all are thought-provoking studies of material on the peripheral boundaries of the stamp hobby. These essays are but a sample of the breadth and depth of the authors’ interests up to and beyond the parameters of traditional philately.

Chapters include discussions of western U.S. railway postcards, postcards and postal stationery cards with Chinese drawings, fundraising Christmas seals, U.S. postal note stamps, stamp collage art, Canadian postage due notice cards, airmail labels, the cachets of Karl Lewis, uncommon use of Canadian 1-cent red leaf and numeral postal stationary cards, amateur radio cards, Jasper National Park postcards, philatelic letterhead, fake fancy cancels, Hong Kong parcel post forms, UK returned letter sealing labels and Inter-University Transit System handstamps.

Exhibiting

Let’s Talk Exhibiting. By David Piercey. Softcover, 200-plus pages, 8½ inches by 11 inches. Published by The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, 2022. $45 Canadian for RPSC members (approx. $35 U.S.) plus shipping, $60 Canadian for non-members (approx. $47 U.S.) plus shipping at www.rpsc.org.

Profusely illustrated with exhibit pages from many different award-winning

exhibits by Canadian exhibitors, the author discusses getting started in exhibiting, exhibit types, exhibit evaluation criteria, and the intricacies of creating effective exhibits and exhibit pages. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic with details on what exhibitors need to consider when they put their own exhibits together. Chapters also highlight how to use white space, how to display non-philatelic material on a page with philatelic material and how to exhibit postcards, postal history plus thematic and topical collections.

Goa

Portuguese India Postal History and the First Issues From the “Natives” to 1900. By Luís Barreiros & Eduardo Barreiros. Hardcover, 200-plus pages, 8 ½ inches by 13 inches (22cm by 33cm). Published by the Royal Philatelic Society London, 2022. ISBN 978-1-913015-18-3. £60 for RPSL members (approx. $73 U.S.) plus shipping, £66 for non-members (approx. $80 U.S.) plus shipping at www.rpsl. org.uk/Publications.

This work is a study of the early stamps and postal history of Portuguese India,

also known as Goa. Goa was the only colony to be authorized by King D. Luís of Portugal to print its own stamps. This decision was taken because British India had its own postage stamps already, because of the geographical proximity of the two, and the commercial activity between the two territories. Because of these factors the stamps were printed locally using rudimentary methods and became known as “native” stamps, being put into circulation on October 1, 1871.

In the first part of the book examines the key events of Goa’s postal history –internal mail, maritime mail, postal reforms, postal agreements, rates, as well as the postmarks and cancellations of Goa, Damão and Diu. Also covered are the mail routes to British India as well as the routes from there to the East and Europe.

The second part of the book is a listing and description of the “native” stamps, presented both in chronological order of their issue and the different varieties of each issue. This section includes more than 1,400 illustrations and includes many examples of stamps and covers from the authors’ own collections.

Great Britain

Mail by Rail: The Story of the Post Office and the Railways. By Peter Johnson. Hardcover, 298 pages, 8½ inches by 11 inches. Published by Pen and Sword Transport, 2022. ISBN: 9781-526776-13-6. $60 plus shipping at amazon.com.

In Great Britain, railways have been used for the carriage of mail since soon after the Liverpool & Manchester Railway opened in 1830 with the development of the first travelling post offices following shortly thereafter. This transition enabled the Post Office to achieve maximum efficiencies in mail transportation. As the rail network grew the mail network grew with it, reaching a peak with the dedicated mail trains that ran between London and Aberdeen.

The Post Office also turned to railways when it sought a solution to the London traffic that hindered its operations in the capital, obtaining powers to build its own narrow gauge, automatic underground railway under the streets to connect railway stations and sorting offices. Although construction and completion were delayed by the World War I, the Post Office (London) Railway was eventually brought into use and was an essential part of Post Office operations for many years.

Author Peter Johnson has delved into the archives and old newspapers to uncover the inside story of the Post Office and its use of railways to carry the mail for nearly 200 years.

Italy

Interitalia 2022: Italian Postal Stationery Specialized Handbook & Catalogue – Refined Edition (Interitalia 2022: Manuale-Catalogo Specializzato Degli Interi Postali Dell'area Italiana –

edizione ottimizzata) By Franco Filanci, Carlo Sopracordevole & Domenico Tagliente. Softcover, 17th edition, 432 pages in Italian and English, 8½ inches by 12½ inches. Published by Laser Invest, 2022. €29 (approx. $30 U.S.) plus shipping Code: 1605E at www. vaccari.it.

This latest edition is a comprehensive catalog of the postcards, postal envelopes, aerogrammes, reply coupons, meter cards, official post-free postcards, money order cards and forms, parcel post cards, postal saving certificates, advance franking postcards, private essays of the Italian States, Italy, liberated lands, occupied territories, San Marino, Vatican and SNOM up to the time of publication. The catalog includes the standard listing data with valuations.

Lithuania

The Daily Postmarks of Independent Lithuania Since 1990: Hand and Companion Book to the Internet

Database (Die Tagesstempel der unabhängigen Republik Litauen seit 1990: Hand- und Begleitbuch zur InternetDatenbank). By Martin Bechstedt and Bernhard Fels. Hardcover, 158 pages, in German with summaries in English, 7¾ inches by 10½ inches. Published by Bargteheide/Soest, 2022. ISBN: 978-3-942841-04-7. €24.50 (approx. $25 U.S.) plus shipping at Arge Baltikum (arge-baltikum.de). This handbook continues the established work Postal Markings in Lithuania 1918–1940/41 by Vytautas Fugalevičius. However, not all postmarks since 1990 are illustrated due to the ever-growing number of them. One of the main reasons for this is that until about the mid-1990s, reworked Soviet metal postmarkers were used. Then, the Lithuanian post office decided not to buy steel handstamps, but instead bought comparatively cheaper plastic devices with rubber dies from Austria. These did not always stand up to the stresses of every day postal use and had to be replaced. This resulted in a large number of different postmarks. However, several thousand of the rubber die postmarks from 1994 onwards have been discovered but not all appear in this work. This handbook explains how the large number of postmarks can be classified into seven different types on the basis of certain philatelic and technical characteristics. The description of each type contains information on the material of the handstamps (metal or rubber), design, diameter, typeface and size, length of the country name, date lines, postal locations and distinguishing letters. Exemplary illustrations, extensive tables and a presentation of the history of origins and historical backgrounds are also included.

Maritime Mail

Blue Funnel Line: Alfred Holt & Company, Liverpool. By Mike Dovey and W.J. Harvey. Softcover, 208 pages, 8½ inches by 12½ inches (22cm by 32cm). Published by TPO & Seapost Society, 2021. £30 for TPO&SS members (approx. $36 U.S.) plus shipping, £32.50 for non-members (approx. $39 U.S.) plus shipping at www.tpo-seapost.org.uk.

The third in the series of books on the shipping lines of Great Britain following on from Bank Line and Blue Star Line. This new publication is a full and complete history of the Blue Funnel Line with more than 640 ship photographs and more than 250 paquebot-related covers posted from the ships themselves.

Postal History

Postmarks, Cancels, Cachets and Obliterators: The Postal History Research of Ernest G. Oëhme. By Denise Oëhme-Fishe. Softcover, 550 pages, 8½ inches by 11 inches. Published by Nielsen, 2022. ISBN: 978-1-83813157-9. $30 plus shipping at amazon. com.

Compiled by the author’s daughter, this resource includes almost seven decades of postal history research involving mainly India (1774 to 1947) and Pakistan. Ernest Oëhme was a founding member of the Pakistan Study Circle and an Honorary Member of the India Study Circle.

This book is a compilation of Oëhme’s published articles and the “Question and Answers” section in the journal India Post. Oëhme was the responder and compiler of this section from 1976 to 1994. The subject matter covered in the articles includes various aspects of postal history including types of postmarks, countries serviced, methods of postal transport

and even the uniforms worn by Indian village postmen.

Topical Collecting

Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. through Philately: MLK Stamp Catalog. By Lavanya R. Softcover, 502 pages, 8½ inches by 11 inches. Published by Catabooks, 2022. ISBN: 978-9356800-85-4. $70 plus shipping at amazon.com

For the topical collector this resource was created to serve both as a worldwide stamp catalog and as a means to learn more about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The catalog focuses on the postage stamps and miniature sheets bearing MLK’s image, but also includes postcards, first day covers, special covers, postmarks, information sheets/brochures, special folders and presentation packs to add emphasis for the postage stamps. Some cinderella issues also are included for reference purposes to aid collectors.

Trams and Buses on Stamps: A Collector’s Guide. By Howard Piltz. Hardcover, 120 pages, 6½ inches by 9½

inches. Published by Pen and Sword Transport, August 2021. ISBN: : 9781-473871-94-6. $20 plus shipping at amazon.com.

The author examines the treatment of transport using roads rather than rail or air as depicted on stamps of the world. This collector’s guide includes some of the more attractive and colorful issues from early buses of Israel to the wellknown double-decker buses produced by the Royal Mail in 2001.

Buses may not be as popular in the world of topical collecting and trolley buses even less so, but the author lists many of the rare issues of both. The tramways issues included in this book feature trams from the beginning of the 20th century.

The History of Rotary Wings: Hundred Years of Achievements Told Through

Philately. By Philippe Orsetti. Hardcover, 82 pages, 8¾ inches by 11¼ inches. Published by BookBaby, 2021. ISBN: : 978-1-098362-37-9. $46 plus shipping at amazon.com.

As a celebration of 100 years of vertical flight, 1907-2007, the author describes the evolution of rotary wing machines, from which helicopters are the result. This book illustrates a five-frame topical philatelic exhibit that telling the story in displaying stamps that have been issued throughout the world up until 2007.

Life of Mahatma Gandhi Through Philately: Gandhi Stamp Catalogue. By Lavanya R. Softcover, 524 pages, 8½ inches by 11 inches. Published by Catabooks, 2021. ISBN: 978-9354739-60-6. $60 plus shipping at amazon.com.

This first edition topical resource was created to serve both as a worldwide stamp catalog and as a memoir to learn more about the life of Mahatma Gandhi, the visionary from Porbandar, so his teachings can be applied to daily lives.

Included are listings for more than 1,168 stamps on Mahatma Gandhi from all over the world from 146 postal entities in 133 countries as well as souvenir sheets, first day covers and postcards.

As a specialized library with a collection that is comprised of roughly 90% donated materials, your charitable and thoughtful contributions of literature help the APRL to grow the size and scope of the collection for members and library patrons. This continued growth enables us to maintain the APRL as the world’s largest and most complete worldwide collection of philatelic literature. If interested in donating literature to the library, please contact us at library@stamps.org.

The following individuals and institutions made donations of philatelic literature to the American Philatelic Research Library in the second quarter of 2022 (April – June).

S.P. Bansal, Robert M. Benninghoff, Jay Bigalke, Stephen J. Bonowski, Andrew Boyajian, Thomas W. Broadhead, Frank R. Covey, Molly Day, Neil Donen, Tony Gallagher, Curtis E. Gidding, Robert L. Glass, John B. Hayhurst, Simon R. Hensman, Terence M. Hines, Rafael J. Igartua, Paul E. Kolva Jr., Ken Lawrence, Jo B. Lievsay and Allen D. McClain.

Also, Elaine B. Nyberg, Samuel M. Ogle, Ellen S. Peachey, Karl C. Rove, Robert C. Rudine, Vincent A. Sgier, Steven L. Sherman, Jafar H. Siddiqui, Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History, Jean C. Stout, Alan Warren, Richard Warren, George M. Werner and David S. Zubatsky.

PHILATELIC LITERATURE CLEARINGHOUSE

The Clearinghouse lists philatelic literature for sale or wanted by PLR readers. The number at the beginning of each item 'identifies the prospective seller or buyer. The names and contact information for the sellers and buyers appear at the end of the Clearinghouse. Please write directly to the buyer or seller, not to the APRL, unless the APRL itself is the seller/buyer.

Pricing: The cost for each item is $3 per listing with a maximum of 10 listings per submission. Items selling for greater than $100 are $7 per listing. Please list only one book or periodical title per item; however, several issues of one journal or auction catalog may be listed as one item. PLR reserves the right to reject or edit any listings submitted.

ABBREVIATIONS: HB - hardbound, SB - softbound, PB - paperback, PC - photocopy, LL - loose-leaf, CB - comb bound, CC - card cover, DJ - dust jacket, w/PR- with prices realized, MO - make offer, OBO - or best offer, POR - price on request.

Send Clearinghouse listings to Scott Tiffney, 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte, PA 16823; or email Clearinghouse@stamps.org. The deadline for each quarter's issue is the 15th day of the first month of the quarter: January 15, April 15, July 15, and October 15.

Philatelic Literature for Sale

1. The Care and Preservation of Philatelic Materials by T.J. Collings & R.F. SchooleyWest. 1989. Explanations and characteristics of philatelic materials (paper, ink, etc.) and how best to care and protect stamps and covers. Like New HB, 55 pages. $25

1. How to Detect Damaged Altered and Repaired Stamps by Paul W. Schmid. 1979. Covers the basics of determining if stamps have issues including: damaged & repaired, gum, perforations, alterations, and expertizing. HB, DJ, 105 Pages. $40

1. United States Savings Stamps by Harry K. Charles, Jr., PhD. 2012. Signed Copy. A terrific reference with great details. Extensive details and abundant color illustrations. Like New, SB, 245 pages. $35

1. U.S. Parcel Post A Postal History by Henry M. Gobie. 1979. Provides detail of Parcel Post and Parcel Postage Due stamps and their uses. Includes Parcel Post regulations. HB, 250 pages. $50

1. Essays for U.S. Adhesive Postage Stamps by Clarence W. Brazer. 1977, Quarterman. A must have book for U.S. specialist collectors. Well-illustrated B&W stamp designs with characteristics. HB, DJ, 293 pages. $50

1. The Revenue Stamps of the United States by Christopher West. 1979. Descriptions of the many issues of U.S. revenue stamps including the numbers issued. Includes plating information. HB, DJ, 144 pages plus 16 plates. $50

1. An Historical Reference List of the Revenue Stamps of the United States by George L. Toppan & others. 1899 reprint, 1990. Expands on West’s book above to include “tax paid” stamps. Great details for revenue specialist. HB, DJ, 423 pages. $50

1. Linn’s Philatelic Gems 1-5 by Donna O’Keefe. 1984-1991. Illustrations, descriptions, and stories behind the rare and valuable stamps of the world. 5 Books, SB, 166 to 174 pages. $35

1. Linn’s Plate Number Coil Handbook by Ken Lawrence. 1990. Superb book on modern U.S. coil stamps providing background and descriptions. Great details and illustrations. SB, 353 pages. $30

1. Rarity Revealed: Benjamin K. Miller Collection by Scott R. Trepel with Ken Lawrence. 2006. Outstanding work on rare and valuable U.S. stamps. Stories and superb color stamp illustrations. Like New, SB, 183 pages. $50

2. The United States Postage Stamps of The 20th Century by Max Johl, Four Volumes: Volume 1 - 1937, revised and enlarged edition; Volume 2 – 1934, signed; Volume 3 – 1935; Volume 4 – 1938. HB, Minimal wear. $95

2. Encyclopedia of Plate Varieties on U.S. Bureau Printed Postage Stamps by Loran French, 1979. Signed, HB, 338 pages, exhaustive listing of plate varieties. $65

2. The Stamp Machines and Coiled Stamps by George Howard, 1942. Three-ring binder, 127 pages, plus Bartels 1940 “295 Sale Catalog” cover, plus CCP 1992 January-February pages, “Schermack Perforation Types,” 22 pages. $40

2. Canada S Registered Mail 1802-1909 by Harrison, Arfken and Lussey, HB, 485 pages, illustrated throughout, CCC Publication 2002. $60

2. Album Weeds — How To Detect Forged Stamps by the Rev. Robert B. Earee, Seven volumes, SB, excellent condition, 514 total pages. The classic. $150

2. Les Timbres De Fantaisie Avec Supplement by Georges Chapier, no year indicated, but early, SB, 40 pages, a must for the cinderella collector. $40

2. Forgeries Old and New by Alden Johnson, two Volumes: 1940 and 1945. SB, 47 plus 47 pages, published by Marks Stamp Company, Toronto. $40

2. Fournier’s 1914 Price-List of Philatelic Forgeries, with an Introduction by Lowell Ragatz by George van den Berg, 1947. SB, minimal cover issues. $30

2. An Illustrated Catalog of All Known Reprints of Officially Issued Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery 1840-1892 by Kaickhoff, Hilckes, and Evans, no year indicated but early. SB, 73 pages. $40

2. Early Forged Stamps Detector by Durst, reprinting early works by Lewis and Pemberton (1863) and Dalton (1865), 1979. SB, author reprints earliest works on forgeries, a classic. $40

3. The United States Postage Stamps of the 19th Century by Lester G. Brookman, 1967. Three volumes; 280, 342 and 278 pp. HB. DJs protected in Mylar. Each volume signed by Brookman. Like new. $125

3. Micarelli Identification Guide to U.S. Stamps: Regular Issues 1847-1934 by Charles N. Micarelli, 1991. 162 pp. HB. new. $35

3. Linn's U.S. Stamp Facts: 19th Century. Basic data on each adhesive postage stamp. Well-illustrated. 272 pp. SB. new. $25

3. Baker’s U.S. Classics by Hugh J. and J. David Baker. A compilation and expansion of their columns from Stamps Magazine (1962-1969). 355 pp. Over 350 illustrations. HB. DJ protected in Mylar, new. S25

3. Sloane’s Column by George B. Sloane, 1980 edition. 467 pp. HB. new. $30

3. The Trans-Mississippi Issue of 1898 by Randy L. Neil. SB. new. S15

3. The Buyers Guide: An Analysis of Selected U.S. Postage Stamps by Stephen R. Datz. SB. new. $15

3. How to Detect Damaged, Altered and Repaired Stamps by Paul W. Schmid. HB. DJ protected in Mylar, new. $35

3. Pacific ’97 Handbook: Combined with The Congress Book, 1997. 400 pp. HB. new. $15

3. Stamps and Stories: Reminiscences of a Stamp Dealer by Peter Mosiondz Jr. SB. new. Gladly signed on request. $19

4. Western Australia, The Stamps and Postal History by Margaret Hamilton & Brian Pope, 1979. HB, dj, 471 pp. b&w illustr., new. Covers the period from 1827-1912. $20

4. The Postage Stamps of Japan and Dependencies by A.M. Tracey Woodward, 1976. HB, 547 pp. plus 243 plates, b&w illustr., new. Still the most complete resource in English on the subject. $30

4. The Postal History of Southern Rhodesia by Edward B. Proud, 1997. HB, dj, 621 pp., b&w illustr. & tables, new. Another of the excellent Proud series of postal history resources. $40

4. Linn’s Complete Stamp Collecting Basics by Michael Baadke, 2004. SB, 392 pp., b&w illustr., like new. Still the most comprehensive introductory work on the hobby.$20

4. A History of Wreck Covers, Originating at Sea, On Land and in the Air by Adrian Hopkins, 1948. HB, dj, 180 pp., b&w illustr., like new. Chronological descriptions of the many notable British sea, land and air wreck covers. $10

4. Porte de Mar by Karl Schimmer, 1987. SB, 138 pp., b&w illustr., like new. Documents the postal history of Porte de Mar through stamps, covers, paper, gum, printing processes & forgeries. $5

4. Mauritius – Picture Postcards 1901-1955 by Andre Kervern, 1992. SB, plastic clip bound, 72 pp, b&w illustr., new. Lists and illustrates the known picture postcards and their rarity. $5

4. The Postal History of World War II mail between New Zealand and Switzerland by Robin Startup & Charles LaBlonde, 2005. SB, spiral bound, 130 pp., b&w illustr., signed by author (LaBlonde), new. Thorough analysis of rates, routes, postal markings and censorship of mail for Switzerland and New Zealand during WWII. $10

4. Canada: Domestic and International Postal Rates and Fees 1870-1999 by Robert C. Smith & Anthony Wawrukiewicz, 2000. Three-ring binder, 1st edition, 44 pp., tables, new. Includes comprehensive rate descriptions and rate tables. $25

4. Polish Exile Mail in Great Britain 1939-1949 by George Kay, 1997. SB, 250 pp., b&w illustr., like new. Details the communications of Poles in the Army, Navy and Air Force and the postal service of Polish Government-in-Exile of London. $15

Members Using the Clearinghouse

1. Gerry Robbins, P.O. Box 89, Bellefonte, PA 16823-0089 – E-mail: gerry.robbins@ cox.net. Phone: 703-628-4858. Shipping and handling extra at current rates. Expect mail delays due to USPS issues resulting from COVID-19 issues and their revised delivery policies.

2. Dr. James Mazepa, contact jmazepa@comcast.net, P & P will be added.

3. Peter Mosiondz, Jr. 26 Cameron Circle, Laurel Springs, NJ 08021-4861. E-mail: choochoopete@comcast.net. Phone: 856-627-6865. Add $5.00 Media mail postage. We ship to U.S. addresses only.

4. American Philatelic Research Library, 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte, PA 16823. Phone: 814-933-3803 ext. 240. Email: library@stamps.org. Shipping extra.

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