The Philadelphia National Stamp Show Committee has announced that the Jury for our 2010 Annual Meeting show will consist of Dr. Edwin Andrews (PA), Richard Drews (IL), Eliot Landau (IL), David McNamee (CA) and Stephen Reinhard (NY). The exhibitor Prospectus and Entry Form can be found on the show website or may be obtained by writing to Mark S. Schwartz, 2020 Walnut Street #32C, Philadelphia, PA 19103 or by email. The deadline for applications is February 13, 2010, but entry forms should be sent in as soon as possible.

In addition to our usually strong showing on the exhibit floor, I’m hoping that some of our members will volunteer to give a presentation about their particular specialties during the show. At our 2009 meeting
in St. Louis, we were noticeably lacking in this area. Please give some thought to making a presentation and contact me with your topic and preferred day and time or if you have any questions.

Additional details about USSS activities during the show will be published as soon as they are finalized. Make plans now to attend the show, which will run from April 9th to the 11th, 2010.

— Nick Lombardi
President

A major expense for the United States Stamp Society is postage.  Each year the official business of the USSS requires approximately $2,000 in postage.  Discount postage usually sells for 75% of face value.

Any member who wishes to make a contribution of discount postage will receive a tax deductible contribution for the full face value of the postage plus mailing costs (including insurance).

Please mail discount postage to the treasurer for distribution, or drop it off at any show where the USSS has a Society table.  A receipt indicating the amount of your tax-deductible, charitable contribution will be sent for all contributions in excess of $5.

We wish to thank several members who have made generous donations of postage to the USSS.

— David Sugar, Treasurer
20 North Wacker Dr., Suite 2250
Chicago, IL 60606

You will soon be receiving your 2010 membership dues notice and ballot for the election of Officers and Board members.  We would appreciate your help in sending in your 2010 dues and ballots early before you become too busy with the holiday season.  You can also order a bound volume of the 2010 issues of The United States Specialist for delivery in 2011.

Please remember that The United States Specialist and USSS membership is on a calendar year basis.  To avoid missing an issue, please renew before the end of the year and take a $3 discount from yearly dues of $25.  Also beginning this year for your convenience, you can pay your dues online via PayPal.  Go to our website www.usstamps.org and click on “Renew.”

The Society has a Hardship Fund for those who are unable to pay their annual dues because of a job lay-off or any other hardships.  If you find yourself in one of these situations, let me know and I will see if we can arrange for your dues to be paid for 2010.  We don’t want to lose any members because of unfortunate circumstances beyond their control.

Many members give additional contributions for the work of our Society.  Their generosity allows our Society to continue development of new research papers, reprints and books.

We would like to recognize those members who contribute to the Sustaining, Contributing and Patron levels as well as those contributions to the Hardship Fund by listing their names in our journal.  If, however, you wish to contribute but remain anonymous, there is a place to so indicate on the dues notice.

Also on the dues notice, we are asking for your email address if you have one.  The email address (as well as your regular journal mailing address) is for use only by the United States Stamp Society.  We do not sell, trade or otherwise give out email or regular mail addresses.  They are strictly for internal use only.

Your Society’s operations require four to five weeks to process address changes and renewals prior to delivery of the next month’s issue of The Specialist.  When members do not renew until February or March, continuation of The Specialist is not guaranteed.  The restarting of the journal to a delinquent dues payer adds expense.  Please let us know if you plan to drop your membership and why, too.

—Larry Ballantyne
Executive Secretary

In accordance with Article V, Section 2, of the Society By-Laws, the Nominating Committee for the 2009 United States Stamp Society election, consisting of Denise Stotts (Chairperson), C. David Eeles, and Robert G. Rufe, has submitted a slate of nominees to serve as Officers and Governors.  They will serve a three year term running from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2012.

In addition to the members running for Chairman, President, Vice President, and Secretary, nine members have been nominated for the Board of Governors, one of whom will be running for the first time.  The Treasurer, Editor, and Executive Secretary are not elected, but rather are paid employees of the Society appointed by the Board.

The election ballots will be included with the annual dues mailing in the Fall.  The Executive Secretary will then tabulate the ballots and report the results to the membership.

A brief background of each of the nominees is presented below.

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

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 contact me by e-mail or write to P.O. Box 690042, Houston, TX 77269-0042.

—Denise Stotts, Awards Committee

The Society will once again have a table at the semi-annual New York Mega Show this month.  The four day show is being held at the New Yorker Hotel, just up the street from Madison Square Garden, from Thursday, October 8th, through Sunday, October 11th.

As usual, it would be greatly appreciated if members attending the show could volunteer some time to help staff our table.  Any amount of time will help, even an hour.  Please let me know if you can assist or stop by the table at the show and we can arrange a convenient time for you to help out.

We will have the full range of our publications available for sale, including our newly released Guide to Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations 1907-1927.  Please make plans to attend the show and stop by the table to say hello.

—Nick Lombardi
President

A major expense for the United States Stamp Society is postage.  Each year the official business of the USSS requires approximately $2,000 in postage.

Discount postage usually sells for 75% of face value.  Any member who wishes to make a contribution of discount postage will receive a tax deductible contribution for the full face value of the postage plus mailing costs (including insurance).

Please mail discount postage to the Treasurer for distribution, or drop it off at any show where the USSS has a Society table.  A receipt indicating the amount of your tax-deductible, charitable contribution will be sent for all contributions in excess of $5.

—David Sugar, Treasurer
20 North Wacker Dr., Suite 2250
Chicago, IL 60606

There must be something about Pittsburgh in August because the Society had one of its best turnouts at any show in recent memory.  More than 100 members converged on the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on the banks of the Allegheny River for four days of philatelic fun and fellowship.  The U.S. Stamp Society was well represented in virtually every aspect of the show.

Our members came to the show from across the country and around the world.  Wout Janse traveled from the Netherlands and Don Chenevert, Jr. came from India with his son, James, who is one of three young collectors selected to participate in the APS 2009-2010 Young Philatelic Leaders Fellowship program.  At the awards banquet on Saturday evening, it was announced that 15 year old Miss Melissa Stanton of Knoxville, PA had been selected as the United States Stamp Society Fellow for the upcoming year.  I was pleased to learn that Melissa will pursue the Author tract within the program, which meshes perfectly with the Society’s strong tradition of philatelic research and writing.  When Melissa stopped by our booth on Sunday, we gave her a number of our publications to start her off.  She also received a complimentary membership for the duration of her fellowship and we hope to see her at our next Annual Meeting.

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The United States Philatelic Classics Society (USPCS) presented its Stanley B. Ashbrook Cup Award to Leonard Piszkiewicz for his book United States Supplementary Mail, published earlier this year by the United States Stamp Society.  The award was presented at APS StampShow 2009 at a meeting of the USPCS.  The citation accompanying the award, read at the meeting by USPCS Vice President John Barwis, reads,

The Stanley B. Ashbrook Cup is awarded to authors of articles, books, or other studies concerning United States postal history from the Colonial Period to 1894.  This year it is presented to Leonard Piszkiewicz for his book, United States Supplementary Mail.

Len began collecting covers in 1950 when his father addressed an envelope for him to obtain a cancellation from the Chicago Fair.  After Loyola University and a doctorate in organic chemistry from California Institute of Technology, he settled in Santa Clara, California.  While glad to have escaped the winters, Len never lost interest in Chicago, whose postal history he began to collect seriously in the late 1970’s.  Many of his findings have been published in the Illinois Postal Historian, which he has edited since 1990.

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