American First Day Cover Society

The new issue of First Days is online here.

The feature article is on the ArtCraft cachets for the George Eastman FDCs of 1954 (Sc. 1062). Other articles include error postmarks on FDCs, cachets for Sc. 989 Statue of Freedom, Baffling Cachets and Part 2 of a checklist of cachets and cancellations for World Stamp Expo 2000. News includes the 30,000^th member of the AFDCS!

Some additional news:

The AFDCS "central office" is closed for the entire month of April, although others will try to pick up the slack.

You can pay electronically for items from the AFDCS (such as memberships or covers) without having or getting a PayPal account. You'll find details here.

1. Send email to Sales@afdcs.org or Membership@afdcs.org and request a "Zettle invoice." Upon receipt, you can pay it with any debit or credit card without having or opening a PayPal account. Please specify for what you are paying, your name, your email address and your mailing address.

2. Send a check to the AFDCS Central Office (address below) and send email to AFDCS@afdcs.org specifying for what you are paying, your name, your email address and your mailing address.

The U.S. Postal Service will release three issues during the show. On Thursday, it will have a first-day ceremony for two stamps promoting Boston 2026. On Saturday, immediately following the APS general membership meeting, the latest in the series of lepidoptera stamps for the non-machineable (greeting card) rate, will emerge from its cocoon: the Luna Moth. Friday’s issue has not yet been announced.

The United Nations and Rattlesnake Island Local Post also will have first-days at GASS and Boston 2026 will release a new label promoting the show. It was designed by AFDCS member Chris Calle, who will spend most of the show at the AFDCS booth, signing and selling his FDCs and related work.

The AFDCS plans to have both show cachets and cachets for these issues for sale at its booth, both serviced and unserviced.

The Great American Stamp Show block of rooms at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel is all but sold out, but rooms may become available because of cancellations. The American Philatelic Society is not reserving a block of rooms at any other hotels this year, but there are many other hotels in the area. The APS has put a link on its website to a hotel reservation site with the show’s period and location.

Note that the hotel reservations link is preset to five nights, starting Wednesday, August 13. You do not need to use those exact dates or book for that many nights. You also do not need to use the linked reservation site; you can use any.

AFDCS Adds Assistant Editors for First Days, Other Media

The American First Day Cover Society, the world’s largest not-for-profit organization dedicated to first day cover collecting, has retained Jason Youngblood and Kristopher Wile (L-R in photo) as assistant editors. Their primary responsibilities will be editing and laying out articles and producing graphics for First Days, the official journal of the AFDCS. However, they will also be involved in producing material for the society’s website, its YouTube Channel, and overseeing the publication of new handbooks and catalogues.

In addition, they will work on maintaining the AFDCS’ new data management system, which is tightly tied in with the website.

“Here in the third decade of the 21^st century, we have the tools to do so much more than we have up to this point,” said AFDCS president Lloyd A. de Vries. “I think hiring these two young men will not only benefit the members of the AFDCS, but philately in general.”

Both men are familiar with philately and first day covers, thanks to their fathers, but were hired on their own merits.

“These were the second- and third-best applications we received,” said de Vries. “New First Days editor Anthony Bard’s was the best.”

Wile has more than 15 years of experience in the entertainment industry with a focus on film production and post-production. While at the University of North Carolina, he was an editor for the prestigious student literary magazine Cellar Door. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. His father Eric is on the AFDCS Board of Directors.

Youngblood runs his own video production company in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife and son. He also directs, edits and composes music and has worked with hundreds of music artists and for festivals such as Austin City Limits, SXSW (“South By Southwest”) and Boilerroom. He handles layout and design for several philatelic publications, often working with his father Wayne.

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.

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.

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.