Our speaker for December was Ed Siskin, who gave an excellent PowerPoint presentation entitled “Birth of the U.S. Post Office.”  Ed began his talk on the postal situation existing in 1774, with 72 post offices in the nation.  He then discussed the many events leading up to the American Revolution, including William Goddard’s attempt to start a Constitutional Post. Ed discussed the extent of censorship in the mails before and during this period and then showed a letter sent by a supporter of t...

Michael Heller presented on “Illustrated School and College Advertising covers.”   Michael showed a fair number of advertising covers that depicted public and private colleges, universities, seminaries and K-12 schools.  He provided brief comments on most of these institutions, many of which continue (in one form or another) to the present day.  These covers spanned the period 1850 to 1890. Some of the highlights included: University of the City of NY, 1850, stampless (now New York...

George Kramer presented on the “Telegraph in America” at our October 13 meeting.  He put together a very professional Powerpoint presentation, in addition to displaying a large number of covers and telegrams from his award-winning exhibit. George first discussed the history of telegraphy, including the roles of both Samuel Morse and his assistant, Alfred Vail.  He then showed many rare postal markings and illustrated covers that documented the growth of telegraphy in the U.S.  Some of the hig...

Carol Bommarito, our speaker on September 8, presented a wonderful array of scarce covers during her talk on “Transatlantic Adhesive Stamped Mail.”  Many of these covers, which focus on transatlantic mail to or from the U.S. during the period 1845 to 1870, were taken from her recent Gold medal exhibit. The presentation started with a NY Postmaster Provisional used on cover to France (1845), followed by the first use of a regular issue U.S. stamp (1847) on a cover sent across the Atlantic (to ...

Dan Ryterband, our June speaker, presented a fabulous array of covers on the topic of “Inland Waterways.”  After first discussing the early history of steamboats and ship mail, Dan presented many different examples of steamboat mail and agent markings, all in very fine condition.  With each item, he explained the postal rates and some of the fascinating details of the various steamboats involved. Highlights included:  1815 steamboat mail (triple war-rate marking); Sackett’s Harbor ship markin...

Our May speaker was Terence Hines, who presented “Hanover, NH – The rest of the story!” Having collected the postal history of this town for many years, Terry showed us a wide range of local postal history material ranging from the later 1700s to more modern times.   Postal markings included: star killers; negative “H” killer; flag cancels; M.O.B. handstamps; fancy registered handstamps and even counterfeit markings.  We also saw a variety of uses, including: Banknote issues to foreign ...

Larry Lyons, our speaker on April 14, gave a fascinating presentation on “Valentines delivered by Local Posts.”  After providing us with a brief history of valentines, Larry went on to show many examples of beautiful valentines and the covers used to mail them during the 1840 to 1860 time period.  As noted below, the postal markings and adhesive stamps varied from rare to unique. The valentines themselves ranged from hand-written poetry to beautiful embossed, multi-color chromolithographs.  T...

Tom Mazza, our speaker on March 10, presented a wealth of postal history material that documented the evolution of “New York to California mails.”  Starting with the first contract mail in 1848, Tom provided us with many rare to unique examples of stampless and stamped mail sent over various postal routes during the 1850s and 1860s. Some of the highlights of this presentation included:  only cover known from the first mail delivery at San Francisco; earliest recorded large ‘40’ handstamp; sev...

Michael Heller presented at the February 10 meeting on the topic “19th Century Boston, Illustrated.”  The focus here was on illustrated advertising covers that depicted various hotels, factories and businesses in Boston, between 1850 and the 1890s.   The talk started with a blue cameo advertising cover from the American House, circa 1852, that depicted the hotel prior to its 1851 enlargement.  The next two covers showed cameos (in green and red) of the enlarged hotel.  The illustratio...

Michael Laurence began the presentations with his fun exhibit on Elvis Presley stamps and covers.  This included a very rare cover from Grenada, one of four known.  Peter Miselis followed with his exhibit on Pan American Exposition postal history, with a focus on covers and postcards related to the assassination of William McKinley. Dan Ryterband showed a large selection of stamp proofs, including 1847 issue trial color proofs, Roosevelt die proofs, India and card plate proofs (including bloc...