American First Day Cover Society

The January-February issue of First Days, the award-winning journal of the AFDCS, is now available for download by members. It was also sent to the printer and should be appearing soon in non-electronic mailboxes.

In this issue:

• A "Minor" Cachetmaker: Patrick Morgan profiles St. Louis artist Thomas A. Minor
• From the Other Side of the Pond: Our new editor is in the United Kingdom, and our Great Britain columnist looks at some of his favorite FDCs of the 21st Century (so far).
• Collecting for Fun and No Profit: Saul Zalesch on covers that may not have much monetary value but illustrate important but often-forgotten history.
• Not Standard Staehles: Hand-drawn cachets prove the cachetmaker was active in the early 1930s.

…. plus a "secret" ArtCraft cachet, personnel changes and additions, a review of a book on exhibiting FDCs, an index to last year's First Days articles, and information about entering the 2024 cachetmaking contest.

Americover 2027, which will held in conjunction with Great American Stamp Show 2027, will be in Albuquerque, NM, August 19-22. The American Philatelic Society's press release:

The APS is pleased to announce the location of the 2027 Great American Stamp Show, unanimously approved by the APS Board: Albuquerque, New Mexico!

The 2027 show will be held August 19-22, 2027 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, located at 401 2nd Street NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Situated in the city’s downtown, the convention center is located just 10 minutes by car from the Albuquerque airport and about a 10 minute walk from the Alvarado Transportation Center.

“We’re excited to host our 2027 show in ‘the Land of Enchantment,’” said APS Director of Membership and Shows, Wendy Masorti. “Albuquerque, a city with a rich culture and history, is a new location for us, and we look forward to making this an impactful and experiential Great American Stamp Show.”

New Mexico’s most populous city and the ballooning capital of the world, Albuquerque is home to incredible natural landscapes; unique, world-class museums (like the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History and the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum); a thriving local food and beverage scene; and countless filming locations from award-winning films and TV shows, including Lone Survivor and AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Thrill-seekers (and truly extreme philatelists) will find options for hot air balloon, helicopter, and even glider rides in the area, and should check out the city’s legendary Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway, the longest aerial tramway in the Americas and the second longest in the world.

And for those wanting to see more of New Mexico while in the area for GASS, APS Executive Director Scott English personally recommends taking the scenic train ride from the city to New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, and visit to the Palace of Governors, which is featured on a Liberty Issue stamp.

We hope to see you all at the Great American Stamp Show in 2027!

And, in case you were wondering, Americover 2026, will be a standalone show in October 2026 at the American Philatelic Center in Bellefonte, PA.

D.A. Lux of Texas will chair the American First Day Cover Society's Convention Planning and Americover 2025 committees. He has attended nearly every Americover show in the past 15 years, often volunteering at the AFDCS booth.

Americover, which is both the organization's annual celebration of first day covers as well as its convention, is now part of Great American Stamp Show (GASS), which this year will be held August 14-17 in Schaumburg, Ill. It includes an exhibition of FDCs, a cachetmakers bourse, AFDCS meetings, seminars, and social events.

D.A. has been a member of the AFDCS and the American Philatelic Society — also a cosponsor of GASS —for more than 40 years. He didn't attend his first stamp show, however, until TEXPEX in 2008. Three years later, he came to his first Americover and joined the Fred Sawyer North Texas Chapter of the AFDCS. He is currently Sawyer's president. He was the 2024 recipient of the AFDCS' Distinguished Service Award and is the society's Chapter Coordinator.

His main collecting interest is the 1983 Brooklyn Bridge stamp and FDCs (Sc. 2041), which he has exhibited at Americover and other national shows. He also collects stamps and FDCs of the $2 Bobcat (Sc. 2482), the four 1937 territory issues (Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Sc. 799-802), and the Chief Anderson stamp (Sc. 4879), as well as just the stamps of Thailand, and the FDCs of several cachetmakers.

He lives in Northern Texas with his wife, Dee. Before retirement, he was a Chief Electronics Technician in the U.S. Navy, including tours of duty on nuclear submarines.

In addition to holding Americover, the AFDCS also publishes its award-winning journal First Days six times a year as well as handbooks and catalogues; has a YouTube channel; promotes the collecting of both modern and "classic" issues and cachets, and  exhibiting them; and offers awards for outstanding first day cover exhibits, the writing of serious FDC literature and the best FDC cachets of the past year.

Nominations will be accepted through May 30, 2025, for the Philip H. Ward Award for Excellence in First Day Cover Literature, presented annually by the American First Day Cover Society. All works published in 2024 are eligible.

All articles and published in First Days, the AFDCS journal, are automatically considered. Other articles and works may be submitted to the Ward Award Committee chair, Mark Goodson, 315 East Dewey Street, Ellettsville, IN 47429-1901, bgdsn@comcast.net, either as clippings or .pdf scans of the material as published.

The award is presented each year at Americover, the annual convention of the AFDCS, which will be held August 14-17, as part of Great American Stamp Show 2025 in Schaumburg, Illinois. A complete list of past winners can be found at www.afdcs.net/Ward-Literature-Award

Past works honored by the AFDCS reflect a wide variety of sources, including journals of other organizations and books.

The award is named in honor of Philip H. Ward (1890-1963), the distinguished Philadelphia stamp collector, dealer and journalist who was a pioneer in the field of first day covers. The award was instituted by the AFDCS in 1964.

The American First Day Cover Society is a not-for-profit educational organization, established in 1955. In addition to First Days, the AFDCS also publishes handbooks and catalogues, and promotes the collecting of both modern and "classic" issues and cachets, as well as the exhibiting of FDCs.

The American First Day Cover Society, the only not-for-profit organization in the world dedicated to the stamp collecting specialty of first day covers, has named Anthony Bard of the United Kingdom as editor of its award-winning journal, First Days.

Tony is also the editor of The London Philatelist, the journal of the Royal Philatelic Society London, as well as the Scandinavian Collectors Club’s The Posthorn, Korean Philately and The Mayflower for the American Stamp Club of Great Britain. Like First Days, The Posthorn won large gold medals in 2024 Literature competitions.

"I confess to being an incurable philatelist," he says. "I began as a stamp collector, became (and remained) a postal historian and was even briefly a producer of limited edition Great Britain first day covers." He has been a fellow of the RPSL since 1990.

Before becoming a full-time postal historian in 2015, Tony owned food businesses (both human and pet). Even before that, however, he won The Royal's Tapling Medal for the best London Philatelist article in 2014, and his exhibits of the postal history of Jammu and Kashmir have won international gold medals. More recently, he has shown single-frame exhibits of Korean War postal history.

Tony lives in West Sussex, England, with his wife and two dogs. You can reach him at editor.firstdays@gmail or editor@afdcs.org.

First Days is published six times a year. The AFDCS also publishes handbooks and catalogues, and promotes the collecting of both modern and "classic" issues and cachets, as well as exhibiting FDCs. It offers awards for outstanding first day cover exhibits and annual contests for both serious FDC literature and the best FDC cachets of the past year. It is also a co-host of the annual Great American Stamp Show, which this year is August 14-17 in Schaumburg, Ill.

Preregistration for the show is now open here on the American Philatelic Society website. You can also sign up for exhibit frames, dealer booths and cachetmakers bourse tables. There is also a preliminary floor plan.

Still to come: hotel information, the schedule that will include first-day ceremonies and FDC-related meetings and seminars, and much, much more.

Last year, several show hotels sold out months in advance, as did some of the exhibit space. Schaumburg is located just west of Chicago's O'Hare Airport, a prime location.

The American First Day Cover Society in 2024 is honoring cachet artist Tom Mueller as its Court of Honor cachetmaker. The Santa Claus cachet is taken from a 1991 cover for the Holiday Celebrations issue with Santa in a chimney (Sc. 2579).

AFDCS Court of Honor No. 44 was serviced with singles of all the U.S. holiday issues, including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, and with all of this year's holiday first-day postmarks. They are available for sale in the Marketplace section of the AFDCS website.

Mueller, a self-taught Midwestern artist, began producing his hand-painted "Silverwing" cachets in 1990 (Dwight Eisenhower, Sc. 2513), and continued designing for new issues until 2006, concentrating then on add-on cachets. Most are one of a kind. His 1991 cachet for the Basketball stamp (Sc. 2560) won the top award in the AFDCS Cachet Contest and his work was featured in a gold-medal exhibit by Anthony Dewey shown at St. Louis Stamp Expo this past March. Nearly three dozen of his family members attended the show to celebrate his philatelic career [photo left; Dewey is second from left in the back row]

An article on Mueller by Patrick J. Morgan [on the left, blue shirt, second row] appeared in the November-December 2021 issue of First Days, the official journal of the AFDCS.

The Court of Honor series commemorates cachet artists who have, over the years, contributed so much to the hobby through the beauty of their art.  It began in 1981 and the first artist honored was Ralph Dyer.  There has been a new Court of Honor FDC every year since then. Stamps with Christmas themes are used because the U.S. issues new ones every year. A different artist is selected each year. (The original Mueller FDC is shown above.)

Many of the earlier years' covers are also available.

Members of the American First Day Cover Society have reelected four people to the organization's board of directors: Michael Lake, Cynthia Scott, Ralph Nafziger and Lorraine Bailey. There were five candidates running for the four three-year terms:

Michael Lake (199)
Cynthia Scott (193)
Ralph Nafziger (190)
Lorraine Bailey (152)
Walter Douglas George (141)

In addition, Chris Calle, Michael Moticia, Michael Rosenthal, and Don Trieschmann each received one write-in vote. Moticia is already serving on the board, after election in 2022. More than 230 ballots were cast, an increase from last year.

This was the first AFDCS election for George, a former supermarket industry executive, and a member of the Convention Planning Committee.

Lake, also of Massachusetts, is also AFDCS Education Committee chair. Scott, from Indiana, is currently Chair of the board and has previously served the society in many other posts. Nafziger lives in Oregon and is also executive vice president. Bailey, a former AFDCS Sales chair from Virginia, is currently on the Honors & Awards Committee and was granted an Honorary Life Membership in 2008 for her long service to the AFDCS.

Four seats on the AFDCS Board of Directors are elected each year for three-year terms, beginning Jan. 1. In addition to the 12 elected directors, the president, the editor of the official journal First Days, and the general counsel serve on the board ex officio, if not elected to the board in their own right. The board meets in person at least once a year and as needed via the internet.

AFDCS directors are not compensated for serving on the board nor reimbursed for their travel expenses.

For more information about the AFDCS, visit www.afdcs.org, e-mail afdcs@afdcs.org or write the AFDCS at Post Office Box 57, Somerset, WI 54025-0057

Patrick Morgan of St. Charles, Mo., is the new chair of the Membership Department of the American First Day Cover Society and a member of its Executive Committee. He succeeds Foster E. Miller, III, who had held the position since 2008.

Morgan, with an MBA from Washington University, worked for IBM for 25 years, where he managed infrastructure architecture for services customers before retiring, and served for four years on the board of the St. Louis affiliate of the Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization. He is presently in his first term on the AFDCS Board of Directors.

Pat collects FDCs topically — by subject — and is also a member of the American Topical Association, as well as the American Philatelic Society, Poster Stamp Collectors Club, and the Greater Mound City Stamp Club, of which he is Treasurer. He also collects postal cards with Fleetwood cachets and Artmaster airmail FDCs, and has written articles for First Days and Topical Time.

"Pat was highly recommend by everyone to whom I talked," said AFDCS president Lloyd A. de Vries. "He started looking at our membership programs even before he was confirmed by the Board."

Miller remains chair of the AFDCS Sales Department and represents the organization at many shows each year. He is also on the Board.

"We could not have made it through the past few years without Foster reconstructing and then maintaining our membership records," said de Vries. "Now, however, I want to lighten his load and also put more emphasis on recruitment and retention of members."

The AFDCS is the largest not-for-profit first day cover society in the world, with members in more than a dozen countries. It publishes an award-winning journal, First Days, six times a year, as well as handbooks, catalogues and You-Tube videos, and is a co-sponsor of the annual Great American Stamp Show. It holds an annual cachetmaking contest and two mail auctions a year, and encourages philatelic exhibiting and writing about FDCs.

Morgan can be reached directly at membership@afdcs.org. For more information about the AFDCS, visit www.afdcs.org, e-mail afdcs@afdcs.org or write the AFDCS at Post Office Box 57, Somerset, WI 54025-0057

Debra "Deb" Gibson has been named executive secretary of the American First Day Cover Society, the largest not-for-profit organization for FDC collecting in the world.

The AFDCS Central Office is now in Somerset, Wis., 30 miles from Minneapolis. The mailing address is PO Box 57, Somerset, WI 54025-0057. The office telephone number, however, remains (540) 940-1629 and the email address still is afdcs@afdcs.org.

Gibson spent more than 29 years in the U.S. Air Force, initially on assignment as a Romanian linguist for the National Security Agency. She spent most of her career in intelligence, with postings all over the country. Deb met her husband, gold-medal FDC exhibitor Rick Gibson, during a joint exercise in England.

She has volunteered for the American Red Cross and the Herwitz Breast Cancer Fund in Frederick, Md. She received a B.S. from St. Cloud University and a M.S. in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University.

Deb goes to many stamp collecting shows each year with Rick, even though she is not a collector. Many of the photographs from past AFDCS conventions were taken by her.

"I have enjoyed getting to know collectors," she says. "This brings me into the hobby just a little more!"

As executive secretary, Gibson also will be a member of the Executive Committee. She joins the AFDCS leadership at an exciting time. Not only is the AFDCS a co-sponsor of the annual Great American Stamp Show and publisher of the award-winning journal First Days, it has also just inaugurated a new member information system that is fully integrated with its new website. Most member access to the site's features are now automated.