Philatelic

(Click on one to take you to the page)

“I've collected U.S. postal history for more than forty years, but it'll be these freekin’ meters that I'll be remembered for!” —Doug Kelsey

I have been a stamp collector ever since my Grandma Darnell gave me a Minkus WorldWide Stamp Album and a packet of used foreign stamps for my eleventh birthday in 1960. While most young collectors stop collecting during the college, career, and family years, I kept right on going. My life-long collecting has given me advantages I wouldn't have otherwise had. (I remember, thanks to stamps, that I was the only student in my sixth grade class who knew what the Baltic countries were and where they were located!)

Over the years, I gradually discovered that I couldn't economically collect the world. I narrowed my collecting interests to a few subjects that I've developed into articles, books, monographs, and exhibits. I can't imagine someone with more diverse philatelic tastes than me. Unlisted are the smaller collections and secondary philatelic amusements that I haven't developed into more prominence. Maybe someday I'll list them here as well.

So here it is, a philatelic journey of a lifetime...or, a lifetime of philatelic journey.

Above: 1925 Norse-American US commemorative issue, used plate block cancelled by the Boston & Albany R.P.O.
Below: Norse-American stamp properly paying the 2¢ international post card rate to Finland, August 1925.

__________________________________________________

LIFE MEMBER: U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, United Postal Stationery Society, American Air Mail Society, St. Helena and Dependencies Philatelic Society, Society of Australasian Specialists/Oceania.

MEMBER: American Philatelic Society, American First Day Cover Society, United States Stamp Society, Meter Stamp Society, Writer's Unit 30, American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors, and Tucson Post Card Exchange Club.

APS-accredited judge since 1984 qualified for: U.S. stamps and postal history (19th and 20th century); mechanization of mail and postage franking (including machine cancels, metered mail, tagging, and computer-generated postage); world-wide aerophilately, postal stationery, and revenues; British Empire and Scandanavian stamps and postal history; Central & South America stamps and postal history; first day covers; and polar.