As you know, our next Annual Meeting will be held at TEXPEX in Dallas, Texas during the weekend of April 13 to 15, 2007. The venue for the show will be the DoubleTree Hotel Dallas located near the Galleria. Information about the show, hotel reservations and other matters can be found on the TEXPEX website, which we have linked to our website under “Meetings & Events.” If any member would like to give a presentation during the show, please let me know so I can arrange a time slot with the show committee. It would also be greatly appreciated if members could volunteer an hour or two to help staff our Society booth at the show. If you would like to help, please let me know and we can work out a time that is convenient for you.

During the past several months I have been contacted by various World Series of Philately show committees that have extended invitations to host future Annual Meetings of the Society. The Board had previously approved sites for the 2008 and 2009 meetings to be held at Philatelic Show^* and St. Louis Stamp Expo, respectively. Last month, additional sites were approved for the 2010 through 2013 meetings. These may seem like a long way off, but such future planning is necessary to assure meetings at quality venues. Our schedule of Annual Meetings is as follows:

As you can see, we have selected quality shows that cover a wide area of the country. Hopefully, you’ll be able to attend a number of these great annual events.

- Nick Lombardi
President

* Note: In May, the USSS Executive Committee announced that the 2008 show has moved from Philatelic Show in Boxborough, MA to NOJEX in Secaucus, NJ.

Ron Demery of Joplin, Missouri was the winner of the contest announced in the December issue of The Specialist (p. 547). He won his prize, a margin copy of the George Rogers Clark commemorative (Scott #651) signed by PM.G. Harry S. New by submitting his email entry literally a couple of seconds after midnight on New Year’s Day. Congratulations to Mr. Demery, and thank you to all who participated in the contest.

- Rod Juell

Reminder postcards were sent out in January to those of you who have not paid your dues for 2007. If you do not respond promptly, this will be your last issue of The Specialist. The annual dues of $25.00 (foreign members extra for postage) buys you an excellent monthly journal on U.S. philately, discounts on Society books, two free ads per year in The Specialist, and access to research papers, reprints, and copies of member exhibits. Please renew now before you forget. You will be doing a service both to yourself and to the Society.

- Larry Ballantyne

The notice “Address Changes” appears in every issue of The U.S. Specialist requesting members to notify the Executive Secretary 30 days in advance of an address change. Many members have become so accustomed to the notice that they do not realize the importance of it to both the Society and themselves. In order for your Executive Secretary to ensure the timely delivery of your journal, the lead time required with the printer forces notification to them by mid-month before the month of issue of The Specialist. This in turn requires the member to notify the Executive Secretary no later than the second week of the month for the coming month’s issue. To account for mail deliveries and other delays, that’s how your Society arrived at the “30 days” requirement. However, there is another factor that enters the picture that is costly to your Society and not merely an annoyance for the member who misses an issue of the journal; that member should stop to consider the ramifications of moving and forgetting to notify the USSS. The Specialist like most periodicals carries a notice that the publisher wishes notification by the U.S. Postal Service that address changes have occurred should delivery not be completed. Hence, for every issue that is undeliverable, the mailing label from The Specialist is returned to the USSS with a service fee of $0.75 charged your Society. Merely notifying the post office of your move only forwards the mail for a limited period of time; you must eventually notify the USSS. When an issue is undeliverable and a request is made by a member for its eventual replacement, additional costs are then incurred by your Society, as the replacement copy cannot be mailed using the bulk-mail rate as the printer did in its initial mailing. In order to keep the journal at the lowest possible price, the USSS prices its membership at less than break-even cost, with the idea of making up the difference with book sales and member donations. Your cooperation in keeping these costs down with timely notification of address changes is appreciated by all.

- Larry Ballantyne
Executive Secretary

The world of philately lost one of its brightest stars with the sudden passing of Wilson Hulme, Curator of Philately at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. Beginning his tenure as the first person to hold that position, Wilson wanted the National Postal Museum to be a place where philatelists could “access the inaccessible,” offering collectors unprecedented opportunities to see extraordinary philatelic rarities. Hulme was instrumental in bringing the exhibits “The Queen’s Own: Stamps That Changed the World” (an exhibition of materials from Queen Elizabeth II’s own Royal Philatelic Collection) and “Rarity Revealed: The Benjamin K. Miller Collection.” Hulme was also instrumental in the museum’s acquisition of John Lennon’s boyhood stamp album.

Wilson was a life-long stamp collector and a member of many philatelic groups including the United States Stamp Society, and he was the current president of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society. His wide-ranging interests included pioneering research on the introduction of perforations for stamp separation and research on the origins of the “Chicago Perforation” on the Series 1851 stamps.

Born in Dallas, Woodrow Wilson Hulme II, known as “Wilson” to his friends in philately, grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968, received a master’s degree from Michigan State in 1969 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to 1976 on nuclear submarines, reaching the rank of captain, and later worked for Frito-Lay and Unilever, and was Vice President of Operations of Nabisco International. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Susan, his mother, a sister and a brother.

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

Award winners, please note: If you have won a USSS award and have not seen it reported here, it is because the show committee has failed to return the requested award report. If you would like to be listed, please send the information to Denise Stotts at P.O. Box 690042, Houston, TX 77269-0042 or by e-mail.

Show Awards Chairs, please note:

USSS AWARDS PROGRAM

The USSS Gold Statue of Freedom Medal is sent automatically to all APS World Series of Philately shows.

The USSS Silver President’s Award medal is available upon request to all local and regional shows.

For more information, or to request an award, please write to Denise Stotts, P.O. Box 690042, Houston, TX 77269-0042 or by e-mail.

The following information was provided by the American Philatelic Society and is published here for the benefit of collectors who actively pursue U.S. stamps with accompanying certificates from expertizing services.

Five low-quality counterfeits of American Philatelic Expertizing Service (APEX) certificates accompanied stamps offered to a collector in Hong Kong recently. The American Philatelic Society learned of the deception from an e-mail sent to APS Deputy Executive Director Ken Martin on December 4, with digital attachments showing the five certificates.

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