C0-Chairs
Greg Shoults
11248 Frederick Lane
Twinsburg, Ohio 44087
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Andrew S. Kelley
9038 E 25th Dr,
Denver, CO 80238
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Andrew began collecting stamps in fourth grade when he purchased a beginner stamp album from his school’s book club. He became fascinated with the Washington-Franklins after attending the APS Summer Seminar as a teenager. With mentorship from Larry Weiss and many others, he assembled a youth exhibit of the two-cent Washington-Franklin head, which he exhibited nationally and internationally. More recently, Andrew has written extensively about the Washington-Franklins and Washington-Franklin era postal history. He also assembled a large gold medal exhibit of the offset-lithographed Washington-Franklins. Andrew is an active member of many philatelic organizations, including the APS, where he serves on the expert committee, the Auxiliary Markings Club, where he edits the quarterly journal, and the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show, where he serves on the show committee. Andrew lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and children.
It was Greg’s Grandfather, who was a collector and an employee at Goodyear Tire & Rubber for 45 years, who got him started in stamp collecting. He mainly collected United States, but also a few foreign countries due to business contacts throughout the world. As a teenager Greg attended local shows and developed a basic United States collection. He still remembers his mother being mad at his Grandfather for allowing him to buy a stamp for $25 dollars. Having sat dormant for a number of years, Greg started up again in his mid 20s when he began a teaching career. He collected United States for a number of years without any real direction. It wasn’t until he had attended a show at Garfield Perry and a long time dealer, Richard Champaign, took some time to discuss with him the challenge of collecting certain issues. Richard talked about certain issues of the Washington and Franklin coil stamps that were a real challenge. His advice was to look for the difficult to find issues first and the common issues later, no matter how expensive the more difficult issues were. He challenged Greg, to find a nice mint 453 joint line pair and the next year Greg produced a used joint line pair of 453 to his surprise. From that point on, Greg started collecting the Washington and Franklin coil issues. Determining the different types as well as the fakes and forgeries of the many different issues is what caught his interest. His first try at exhibiting started around 2006 and began with a single frame of the 1910 coil issues. Since then, he has developed several different single frame exhibits on various issues of the Third Bureau coil issues. A few years later he started with a multi frame exhibit and since has had the opportunity to exhibit at many of the WSP shows across the country as well as three international shows. His first international show was Brazil in 2013 where he also served as commissioner for the United States. He also exhibited at New York 2016 and most recently at CAPEX 2022 in Toronto, Canada, where he also served as commissioner for the United States. For the past several years Greg has served as exhibits chairman for the Garfield Perry stamp show.
Members have access to all of us to ask questions, discuss a new find and what may be unusual about it, or even just comments. We also field questions that come from non members and they are encouraged to join in if they wish. We publish articles in The Specialist after being reviewed by all members. Several recent articles that appeared were on the ever popular 5c red error, how it occurred, was found and what ultimately happened to them. A census was also published of their usage on cover, updating one that had been done 20 years ago. Other articles included stories about the “blue papers” and the scarcity of some issues.
Even though the series is now over 100 years old and counting, there are still new discoveries being made, new things to discuss, and old subjects to re- live. Combining everything I think that’s why we love the Washington Franklins so much.