Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on May 10, with Dan Ryterband speaking about his latest exhibit entitled "The American Civil War - The Anaconda Plan." This incredible exhibit focused on Naval mail related to the Union blockade of Southern ports, whose objective was to crush the Confederacy. Using four frames of material, Dan walked us through the history of this famous strategy that eventually won the war. Dan noted that the main goal of the Anaconda plan was...

Dick Wrona was our speaker at the September 13 meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS on the topic "Western Expansion, Crossing the Pacific." His detailed PowerPoint went into many aspects of the trends that accelerated the expansion of the U.S. into the Pacific. Along the way, Dick showed many different covers that illustrated this expansion. Some of the highlights included: Pair of 1851 three cent issue going from Stockton, CA to Maine via the Isthmus of Panama; Three cent 1857 issue tied C...

The April 12 meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS was hosted by Labron Harris, who spoke about the "New Orleans Expositions of 1884-86." Labron's slide presentation showed a great many covers documenting the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Expositions and the North, Central and South America Exposition. In addition to the many beautiful overall illustrated covers depicting the fair grounds, the collection included much promotional material and many scarce exposition postmarks. Some...

Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on Tuesday, March 8, when Wade Saadi presented Part 2 of his fabulous Parcel Post Postage Due exhibit (Foreign uses). While Wade's previous talk focused on the domestic uses of this elusive set of stamps, his latest talk looked at a wide variety of covers mailed from various foreign destinations to the U.S. In each case, postage due on the letter was indicated with Parcel Post Postage Due (PPPD) stamps, sometimes in combination wi...

Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on February 8 via Zoom, with Chip Gliedman speaking on "Canadian Cross-Border Covers and Accountancy Markings, 1819-1857." While Chip is a recognized expert on 19th century U.S. postal history, he demonstrated his deep knowledge of Canadian Cross-Border mail with a myriad of covers showing many different rates and postal markings.  Chip noted that the first postal convention dealing with Canadian Cross-Border mail went into eff...

Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on December 14, when Roger Brody gave his presentation on the "Stamp Act of 1765 - Instructions for the Distributors." While Roger is well known for his award-winning exhibits on early 20th century stamps and covers, this presentation showed his deep knowledge of U.S. Colonial history.  Roger first discussed the use of embossed stamps for taxation purposes and then reviewed the Stamp Act of 1765, famously known as one of the ...

Michael Heller was our speaker on November 9, when he presented on "Antebellum Illustrated Circulars." While the focus of this talk was on stampless and stamped mail that contained printed illustrated advertising, he reviewed the various changes in postal rates that gave businesses an incentive to produce and mail circulars that contained elaborate illustrations of their wares and business locations.  The talk covered mail sent from the 1830s to the beginning of the Civil War. The presentati...

Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on October 12, with Wade Saadi speaking on "Parcel Post Postage Due, Rates and Uses - Part I." As Wade pointed out, his gold medal winning exhibit was the first to cover the postal history of this unusual set of postage stamps, that were initially issued to collect postage due on parcel post packages. As with the parcel post stamps themselves, the use of these parcel post postage due (PPPD) stamps were first limited to just parcel...

Bob Rose was our presenter at the New York Chapter USPCS meeting on September 14, on the topic "United States Mails: Its First 80 Years Without Stamps." His talk covered the period 1775 to 1855, during which postage stamps were either unavailable or optional. Aside from covering the evolution and history of the mails during this period, Bob showed some amazing examples of postal history. He first discussed the social history and evolution of the mails, noting that letter writing was the prim...

Rob Faux was our speaker at our June 8 meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS, on the topic "Choices, Choices! Sending Mail from the US to Europe in the 1860s." Rob showed an incredible array of transatlantic mail from the 1860s, covering a number of destinations within Europe. Starting with the U.S.-British Convention of 1848, Rob analyzed these covers, including the breakdown of the credits and debits associated with each nation. He showed examples of multiple rate and short-paid covers, an...

Labron Harris was our speaker at our May 11 meeting, on the topic "Demonetization of the Three Cent First Issue Nesbitt Envelope." Labron has collected Nesbitt postal stationery for many years, with a particular focus on postal markings and uses. In this presentation, he showed a variety of Nesbitt envelopes that were demonitized as a result of the Civil War, including both Northern and Southern examples. The talk started with an envelope mailed from Philadelphia with an "Old Stamps/Not Recogni...

Our most recent Zoom meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on Tuesday, April 13. Fred Gregory was our speaker on the topic "Hawaii during the Spanish American War." Fred is one of the most knowledgeable individuals regarding the stamps and postal history of Hawaii and he gave us a very in-depth presentation on the role of Hawaii during the Spanish American War. He began histalk with an overview of the political situation that led to the formation of the Republic of Hawaii and its ...