January 2019

PHILATELIC HAPPENINGS
BY KEN MARTIN
chief membership officer | kpmartin@stamps.org
Acronym cavalcade at CSAC, NPM and APRL
Ivan Cash
Spencer R.
Crew
Mike Harrity
The U.S. Postal Service announced the appointment of
three new members to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee
(CSAC). Established in 1957, CSAC members consider
and then recommend stamp subjects to
the Postmaster General, who makes the final
decisions.
The newest members are Ivan Cash, Spencer
R. Crew and Mike Harrity. Cash is an
award-winning interactive artist and film director,
and the founder of Cash Studios of
Oakland, California. Crew is the Clarence J.
Robinson Professor of History at George Mason
University in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Harrity is the senior associate athletics director,
Student-Athlete Services, at the University
of Notre Dame near South Bend, Indiana.
They join continuing members Gail Anderson,
Peter Argentine, B. J. Bueno, Cheryl R.
Ganz, Janet Klug, Carolyn Lewis, Harry Rinker,
Maruchi Santana and Katherine C. Tobin.
Many members may recognize Klug as a past
president of the APS and Ganz as a current
vice president. Learn more on the APS blog
at https://aps.buzz/CSAC2018.
Bay Stamp Club of Oakland, California
held its 73rd Annual Stamp Show on October
27-28, 2018. The show attracted 190 collectors who examined
material from 13 dealers with something for every collector.
The competitive exhibits consisted of four multiframe exhibits
and nine single-frame exhibits ranging in themes from
Owney the Postal Dog and His First Day Covers to Finland-
Russian Area Rebellions 1919-1922.
The Olean Stamp Club hosted a program on Migratory Bird Hunting
and Conservation Stamps with local artist Jennifer Miller, who
designed the 2015 Federal Duck Stamp.
Following a successful Oleplex Stamp Show the Olean
Stamp Club of New York state featured a program on the
Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp with local
artist Jennifer Miller who designed the 2015 Federal Duck
Stamp.
On November 1 and 2, 2018, the Tenth Blount Postal History
Symposium was held at the Smithsonian National Postal
Museum. With 2018 marking the centennial of the end of the
First World War, this year’s symposium topic was “WWI and
its Immediate Aftermath,”
Much of the world was covered in the wide range of papers
presented and in philatelic exhibits at the NPM. Topics
considered varied widely from the postal workplace and logistics,
to propaganda and censorship, and from funding the
war to adapting to the shortages it caused.
The American Philatelic Research Library 50th anniversary
celebration began with an informal meet-and-greet at Big Spring
Spirits on Friday, November 2.
Among the panels and presentations of interest were Diane
DeBlois and Robert Dalton Harris’ “U.S. Army Signal
Corps Telephone & Telegraph in the Great War;” Ravi Vora’s
“The Versailles Peace Treaty: The Role of Diplomatic and
Military Mail;” Nancy Pope’s “Postal Censorship of the Press
during World War I;” Alexander Kolchinsky’s “The Mail of
Prisoners of the Great War: Picture Postcards and Aid-Related
Cards;” and Jim Miller’s “Write that Letter Home: Senders,
Recipients, and the Content of World War I Correspondence.”
A public lecture on World War I letters was held on the
night of October 31. Curator-led visits to the NPM exhibition
“My Fellow Soldiers” were offered during the symposium. An
online version of that exhibit is available at https://aps.
buzz/NPMSoldiers.
72 AMERICAN PHILATELIST / JANUARY 2019