On August 4-8, 2016, The APS will hold its annual StampShow in Portland, Oregon. That means that the USPCS will be holding a meeting there, sponsoring a number of talks and hosting a Society dinner on Friday night. Dale Forster will also be organizing a chartered-bus field trip from the show hotel to Fort Vancouver. Reservations will be needed for both Friday night dinner and the Saturday outing. See below for a full list of Society activities and details on how to reserve a place at the outing and dinner. A non-Society talk by a Society member, sponsored by the AAPE, is also listed.

5 Aug Board of Directors Meeting (open to all USPCS members)
8:00-10:00 Room B113

5 Aug Historical letters from the northwest corner.
Dale Forster
11:00-12:00 Room C121

5 Aug USPCS Dinner Courtyard Portland Downtown
6:30 Drinks
7:00 Dinner
Reservations required: dwsnow@centurylink.net

6 Aug USPCS-sponsored trip to old Fort Vancouver
Dale Forster
10:00-1:30 $45/person, includes bus, lunch, and tour.
Prepaid reservation required: mike.plett1@gmail.com

6 Aug The New York Postmaster Provisional.
Mark Schwartz

2:30-3:30 Room B117

6 Aug Behind the scenes of World Stamp Show NY2016.
Wade Saadi

4:00-5:00 Room B119

Philatelic Show

Tim O’Connor won the Grand Award at the Philatelic show in Boxboro, Mass. on the weekend of May 6-8, 2016 with his “Postal History of the Thirteen Colonies.”  He also won the APS Pre-1900 award; the APS Research Medal; and the Postal History Award  Mark Schwartz won the Classics Society Medal (and a gold medal) with “The Postal History of Salem, Mass.. Domestic Mail through Sept. 1883; Foreign Mail up to U.P.U.”  Members winning Vermeil medals included Yamil Kouri with his “The Rise and Fall of the New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Co.” and Matt Liebson with his single frame “The Cleveland Circuit R.P.O.”  Matt also won the AAPE Award of Excellence.

Rocky Mountain SS

The Rocky Mountain Stamp Show was held in Denver on May 13-15.  Matt Kewriga won the Grand Award with “Danish West Indies Foreign Mail 1748-UPU, along with the AAPE award for Plan and Heading Excellence; and the Postal History Society Award.  David New won the Classics Society Medal (and a Vermeil medal) for “Postal History of Colorado.”  Rick Mingee also won a gold medal for “San Francisco Postal History: 1849-1869” (as well as the Aurora Stamp Club award for the best Exhibit by a Colorado resident).  Ravi Vora won a Vermeil medal for his single frame “Ahmadnagar India POW Camp Mail; Boer War to World War One.”   Ravi also won a Silver medal for his “U.S. Consular Fee Stamps: Proofs, Essays, Bisects, the Multiples and Rare Usages.”

Colopex

Colopex was held on June 10-11, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio.  The Grand Award was won by USPCS member Andrew MacFarlane with his “First Days of the 1929 George Rogers Clark Commemorative.”  Andrew also won the U.S. Stamp Freedom Medal for best U.S. exhibit and the American First Day Covers award.  Dan Telep won the Reserve Grand award with “Vietnam’s Communist Insurgent Military Mail 1959-1975” (also the APS Medal of Excellence 1940-1980, the Postal History Society medal and the American Philatelic Congress award.  The Best Single Frame Award was won by Matt Liebson with “Integral Rate Postmarks of Cincinnati, Ohio (also the Collector’s Club of Chicago Philatelic Exhibitors Award).  The USPCS Medal was won by Henry Fisher for “First Federal Stamp Issue” (also a gold medal, the APS Medal of Excellence pre-1900 and the Columbus Philatelic Club’s Columbus Award of Excellence for Best of Show by a CPC Member).  Other Society members winning medals were Jim Pullen, who won a gold medal, the APS Research award and the Lighthouse award for “Pioneer Steamers of the North Atlantic 1838-1840) and Michael Morrissey who won a vermeil medal for “The Letterpress-Printed precancels on the 2nd and 3rd Issue of the U.S. Proprietary Revenue Stamps, 1871-1883.”

Gordon Eubanks won the Grand Prix National (see photo) and Mark Schwartz was a Candidate for that award. Schwartz’ exhibit was “Boston Postal History to 1851.” These exhibits had won the U.S. Champion of Champions in the past two years.

James Peter Gough was a Candidate for the Grand Prix International with “Universal Postal Union (“UPU”) and its Impact on Global Postal Services”. This exhibit won the Champion of Champions three years ago.

Several other Society members also won awards. As can be seen below, USPCS members did extremely well in New York. Out of 763 exhibits awarded medals, only 77 received large gold, and 13 of them were USPCS members. Out of the 204 gold medals, 26 were awarded to Society members, as were 13 of the 198 large vermeils. Members also did extremely well in the Single Frame category, where points were awarded, but not medals. In that category, we had four exhibits with 93-94 points. The full list of SFEs is at the end of this note.

Large Gold Medal

John Barwis – Philadelphia-Great Britain Mails
Dale Forster – Australian Colonies-USA Mail
Robert D. Forster – British Columbia & Vancouver Island 1858-1871
Alfredo Frohlich – Panama–The Path Between the Seas
Fred Gregory – Hawaii Foreign Mail to 1890 (literature)
James Grimwood-Taylor – The British Postal Reform of 1839 to 1840
Geoffrey Lewis – New Orleans Postal History Stampless Mail
Richard Malmgren – Hawaii Foreign Mail
Vernon Morris – Fighting the Fed in Philadelphia. Carrier, Local Posts & Independent Mail, 1835-1868.
Patrick Walters – The United States Government Flights (1918-1927)
Paul Winants – Stampless Maritime Overweight Mail in Pre-UPU Times (1765-1876)

Gold Medal

Jim Allen – The First United States 12c Stamp of 1851-1861
John Birkinbine II – Pioneer Arizona Area Classics, 1783-1870
Jeffrey Bohn – Accountancy Markings Associated with the 1857 Franco-British Postal Convention

Carol Bommarito – The Development of Adhesive Stamp Usage on Transatlantic Mail
Robert Boyd – Mail Between the U.S. and Germany before the Universal Postal Union
Hans Van Dooremalen – USA Postal Cards 1873-1913
Hugh Feldman – The First Four Decades of U.S. Railroad Contract Mails
Jeffrey Forster – The United States 1869 Pictorial Issue used in International Mails
Ian Gibson-Smith – The Hong Kong ‘China’ Overprinted Stamps 1917-1930
Kenneth Gilbart – United States 10c Issue of 1861
Chip Gliedman – Postal Uses of the U.S. 12c 1861 Issue
Leonard Hartmann – Confederate States of America, The Lithographed General Issues
Jan Hofmeyr – The Development and Use of the 3c Washington: 1861-1869
Nicholas Kirke – The Progression of New York City Foreign Mail Cancels 1845-1878
Lester C. Lanphear III – United States Penalty Clause Mail: The Classic Period
Geoffrey Lewis – The 1836 Anglo-French Postal Convention
Larry Lyons – The U.S. Local Posts Handled the City Mail
Henry Marquez – The Peruvian Security Seal for Certified Mail of 1916
Friedrich Meyer – Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Letters of he Various Postal Administrations
Rick Mingee – San Francisco Postal History 1849-1869
Timothy O’Connor – Postal History of the Thirteen Colonies, 1675-1782
Anders Olason – The American Civil War 1861-1865 – Background, Course of Events and Aftermath
Robert G. Rose – New Jersey Stampless Covers; Handstamp Postal Markings 1775-1855
Stephen Rose – The 2c Stamp of the 1869 Pictorial Issue
Salomon Rosenthal – The Route of the UPU, Mexico’s Foreign Mail Issues, Their Postal History.
Eigil Trondsen – Cunard Line: The Ships and the Transatlantic Mail 1846-1867, the Monopoly Years
Steven Walske – North American Blockade Run Mail, 1775-1865
Steven Walske and Richard Frajola – Mails of the Westward Expansion, 1803-1861 (literature)

Large Vermeil Medal

Michael Bass – Foreign Postal Operations in the Holy Land 1852-1914
Lars Boettger – The Anglo-American Postal Convention of December 15, 1848
Albert Briggs – The ABCs of Patent Medicines-United States Private Die Proprietary Medicine Revenue Stamps
Roger Brody – Jamestown 1907
Gary Granzow – Line Engraved Security Printing
Lawrence Haber – The Half-Penny (decimal) Machin
William J. Johnson – James William Denver – The Man and His Times
John Kimbrough – Collector’s Guide to Confederate Philately, Second Edition (literature)
Michael Laurence – U.S. 10c Postage Stamp of 1869
Friedrich Meyer – The First Postal Convention between Great Britain and the Kingdom of Hanover
Ralph Nafziger – The 3c 1848 Oregon Territory Issue
Daniel Ryterband – A Country Divided: Effects of the American Civil War on the Mails
Daniel Warren – Southern Mail

Vermeil Medals

Hans Van Dooremalen – War Hospitals in Brunn During the Great War
Greg Herbert – The Butterfly Effect
William Maddocks – The Principality of Serbia

Large Silver Medals

Cheryl Ganz – Every Stamp Tells a Story (literature)

Non-Medal

(single frame exhibits) (in order of points)

Cheryl Ganz – The 50c Zeppelin Issue: A Study in Design (94)
David D’Alessandris – Mail Carried by the Cunard Line Between Halifax and the United States (94)
Richard Taschenberg – The 10 cent US Envelopes of 1870-1874 (94)
Nick Kirke – New York City Foreign Mail Fancy Cancels 1873-1875 (93)

Howard P. Green – Handstamped Rates on Confederate Mail (86)
Francis Adams – The Charter of the United Nations (A Document for World Peace – San Francisco, 1945) (85)

Hal Vogel – 1838-42 Wilkes Antarctic Expedition: In Many (often unfavorable) Facets (84)
Robert Watson – Airmails from New Zealand to the United States 1930-1953 (82)

Lester C. Lanphear III – Go-The World’s Oldest Board Game (71)

Several new exhibits have been added to the website, including Bill Gross’ “United States: The 1847 Issue.” Arguably the best exhibit of this issue ever put together, it contains many of the iconic 1847 items and has won two large golds in International competition.  We have also added Vern Morris’ 2006 Champion of Champions winner “Fighting the Fed in Philadelphia” and an updated version of Gordon Eubanks’ 2012 Champion of Champions (and also International large gold) “First Federally Issued Postage Stamps“.  Other newly-added WSP Gold award-winning exhibits include Dwayne Littauer’s “Pre-U.P.U. Rates Between U.S. and The German States“; Peter DuPuy’s “The 30c and 90c U.S. 1861 Issue“; Columbian Stamp Company’s “Columbian Exposition 1893 Exhibit“; Six of Bill Ainsworth’s Lincoln Exhibits; and Edward Field’s “Colored Cancels on the U.S. Stamps of 1869.”