Wallace Cleland has been selected to receive the Walter W. Hopkinson Memorial Award for the best article or series of articles published in The United States Specialist during 2006.  The award is given annually by the United States Stamp Society and consists of an engraved plaque and an honorarium.  Presentation of the award will be made at the Society’s 2007 Annual Meeting at TEXPEX in Dallas, Texas in April.  Wallace, past Board Chairman and current editor of the Durland Standard Plate Number Catalog, has been a prolific contributor to the monthly journal.  He joins George W. Brett and Larry S. Weiss as a three time winner of this prestigious award.

Cleland’s seven part series “AMG Plate Blocks” appeared from April through October in The Specialist.  These articles described in detail the allied military postage stamps issued at the end of World War II as postal service resumed in Italy, France, Germany and Austria.  Taking full advantage of the journal’s color illustrations, Cleland described these stamps and the role played by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in their production.  The stamps are not listed in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of U.S. Stamps and Covers, but only in the general catalogs under the country in which they were issued.  The stamps had previously been described in the journal at the time they were issued, but there were no illustrations of plate blocks then or since, until now.  It is hoped that Cleland’s series of articles will result in the listing of AMG stamps in the Scott Specialized Catalogue.

The Hopkinson Memorial Literature Award selection committee consists of the last three winners of the Award.  The committee for the 2006 Award consisted of Roger S. Brody, the 2003 winner for “Raymond Ostrander Smith Pencil Drawings - Series 1902,” Melvin Getlan, the 2004 winner for “Follow-up On Early Usage of Dummy Test Stamps” and Nicholas Lombardi, 2005 winner for “The U.S. Registry Label & Receipt of 1907.”

The Award has been given annually since 1954 in honor of Walter W. Hopkinson.  It was established by his wife, Mrs. Constance B. Hopkinson, in view of Hopkinson’s interest in philatelic scholarship and the dissemination of research and knowledge through the Society’s publications.  Hopkinson was a plate number specialist as well as a long-time member and vigorous supporter of the Bureau Issues Association, as the Society was then named.

A list of all previous winners of the Award can be found on the Society’s website: www.usstamps.org; click on “Feature Articles and Links” and then “Description of Awards given by the Society.”