GREEN BAY PHILATELIC SOCIETY 2016 Baltic Terrace, Green Bay, WI 54311 President: Darryl Ruprecht 468-6348 Vol. 34 No. 4 April, 2014 Vice President: Dave Burrows 468-7566 Secretary: Ray Perry 469-8925 Editor: Ray Perry 469-8925 Treasurer: Kirk Becker 680-1063 Publisher: Darryl Ruprecht 468-6348

APRIL MEETING – Happy Easter WHERE: BROWN COUNTY SENIOR CENTER WHEN: April 17, 2014 (third Thursday of every month)

TIME: Open 7:00 pm, business meeting 7:30 pm PROGRAM: Show and Tell and Silent Auction

Reminder: We need volunteer members to pick up a key from the Senior Center by 4:00 pm on the day of the meeting. April’s volunteer is Randy Younger.

Winter Months Reminder (hate to see this continue into April ): in the event of adverse weather the meeting will be canceled if the Green Bay Public Schools are canceled.

March Meeting

Old Business: Key pick up – back in December Dave Burrows mentioned that he would be unable to pick up the key in January and February. Due to unforeseen circumstances that has been extended to March and now April. Randy Younger has graciously agreed to do it for another month. Dave, if you don’t want that job anymore all you have to do is ask for someone to take your place at a meeting and I’m sure we can get a new volunteer . All kidding aside, Dave had some eye surgery in March that kept him away from the meeting and Baypex, then in April he and his wife will be helping to care for their grandson following his lower jaw surgery. Dave does expect to be back in May, so the ball will then be back in Dave’s court. Thanks again to Randy Younger for pinch hitting in Dave’s absence. New Business: The club received a notice of sale of an extensive U.S. Duck collection. The contact information was passed around at the meeting. If anyone is interested that missed the meeting, let me know and I will try to get you the info. The club also received Wiscopex ’14 exhibit entry forms. There will be open, single frame, youth, and non-grades exhibit classes along with a team class. Anyone interested should contact me for the entry forms.

Randy Younger reported that next year’s Einstein Project will be held on January 10, 2015. Randy Younger also announced that he is looking into forming a local chapter of the American Topical Association. There was a fair amount of interest at the meeting. Anyone interested in looking into this further should contact Randy Younger. We received an e-mail from a philatelist that has put together several philatelic blogs. I looked at a couple of them and they looked interesting. I plan to revisit them in the future. If you are interested here are the URLs: Postal history: http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca Gr. Britain.: http://greatbritainphilately.blogspot.ca Neth.: http://netherlandspostalhistory.blogspot.ca Philippines: http://philphilately.blogspot.ca If you have a chance to look these blogs over, let me know what you think. Juniors Committee: Dave Burrows and yours truly met with a group of six home schooled kids from two families to talk about stamp collecting. This is the group that visited our booth at the Einstein Project. Dave had prepared personalized packets of stamps for each of the students which he handed out. Dave gave a short session on soaking and mounting stamps. I brought my “One Stamp from Every Country” album and my “Wisconsin on Stamps”

album. The parents were very interested in those and all the ways they could be used in teaching geography, history, culture, and so on. I’m not sure who came away more excited the students, their parents, or Dave and me. We invited the kids to a club meeting, or a Saturday session sometime in the future. Show Committee: Final plans were made for Baypex ’14. For how the show went, see the Baypex section later in the newsletter. Nominating Committee: Darryl Ruprecht asked for volunteers to serve on the nominating committee. Dave Burrows will serve as one of the responsibilities of his office. In addition Randy Younger volunteered to serve and be the Committee Chair, and John DePrey volunteered to serve. It seems like it is always tough to find people willing to move into these leadership roles. If you are approached, please give serious consideration to running. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually had a choice in our election? Membership Committee: Ray gave a brief update on our current membership. There were six members from last year that had not yet renewed their membership for this year. Ray has contacted all six of them. Five of the six have committed to renew their membership. The sixth person is Ray Vedder. Ray has been a member for a long time. He and his wife moved to Cincinnati a number of years ago. He is a member of the Wisconsin Philatelic Hall of Fame and has maintained his membership in our club from afar. Ray has suffered a couple of strokes recently and is unable to continue with his philatelic endeavors. Ray Vedder wanted to wish everyone well. I think that we all want to wish Ray well too. Ray, we will certainly miss you as a member and want to wish you the very best in the future. For Your Information: A couple of items:

1. Chuck Sanders inquired about the number of members vs. last year. As of right now we are down 1 member. Lets all see if we can invite a friend to the April meeting.

2. Bob Petersen brought up the inverted jenny issue and there was some discussion about how many inverted inverted jennys were out there, what they were worth, and some of the shenanigans that is going on around trying to find one.

March Program: the March program was a silent auction.

April Program: The April program will be “Show and Tell” night along with a silent auction. What is “Show and Tell” – well, did you acquire a philatelic treasure at BAYPEX ’14? Some little treasure you obtained during the winter? Well, bring it or them along to the April meeting.

Be prepared to describe your “show and tell” item(s) briefly (less than five minutes). Please have your prize mounted or otherwise protected so that it can be passed around safely.

Ray’s Ramblings Last month we took a little side trip from our journey through U.S. stamps to a warmer climate. We traveled through philately to the Caribbean where we soaked in the sun and laid around the beach. It was a great philatelic end to the long winter . This month we will resume our walk through U.S. stamps. Recall that two months ago we left off with the Virginia Dare issue (Scott #796). A beautiful stamp commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first birth of a child of European descent in the New World and the establishment of the “Lost Colony”. It is pictured below.

Scott #796

We will pick up this month with another one of those issues attributed to Postmaster General, James A. Farley. That is the Imperforate Souvenir Sheet with the 10 cent Great Smoky Mountains National Parks stamp in green. It is shown below.

Scott #797

This stamp was followed by a stamp commemorating the 150th ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Along with the constitution stamp four

stamps celebrating the U.S. interests in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands were issued in 1937. Images of the constitution stamp and the Alaskan stamp are shown below.

Scott #798 Scott #800 This group of stamps wrapped up the 1937 issues and led to the iconic Presidential Series of 1938, also known as “the prexies”. This set of definitives commemorated the first 29 presidents of the U.S., Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the White House. Much study has gone into this series and much has been written about the series. The series contained 32 denominations which began at ½ cent and went up to $5.00. The series is very appealing in its simplicity. The first 29 stamps (up through 50 cent) were printed in a single color. The dollar value stamps were printed in two colors. Shown below are images of the ½ cent through $5.00 sheet stamp values of these stamps.

Scott #803 – 31, 832, 833, and 834

The $1.00 stamp was also issued on paper watermarked “USIR”, that is Scott #832b. The dollar value stamps are collected in several different block formats. There is the usual plate block, then there are center line blocks, and arrow blocks. These are pictured at the top of the next column.

Scott 3832 arrow block Scott #830 plate block

Scott #833 and #834 center line blocks

In addition to the various block formats there were also 13 different coil stamps issued. Some of these coils were perf 10 horizontally, however the majority were perf 10 vertically. All of these were in denominations of 10 cents or less. Examples are shown below.

Scott #844 (vert. coil) Scott #849 (horiz. coil) The 2014 Harris Catalogue lists a total of 53 different stamps in the series. This includes sheet stamps, coil stamps, and blocks. Most of these stamps are affordable, so it is a very collectible series. It was in use from 1938 until 1954 when the Liberty Series was issued – more on that one in a later issue. Before we leave the prexies, one note, recently there was a series of articles in Linn’s about the various uses of these stamps on cover. If you are interested in collecting this series and enjoy collecting covers too, you may want to look into those articles.

The next couple of years produced several more 3 cent stamps all in various shades of purple. I think my favorite of these stamps is Scott #855 which commemorated our national pastime – baseball. A picture of a plate block of this stamp is shown below.

Scott #855

While the clothing being worn in this stamp may be a bit outdated, it brings back childhood memories of a group of us getting together, heading to the park on a Saturday morning for a good old fashioned pick up game of baseball. I think that we will end our discussion here for this month. Next month we’ll pick up with the “Famous Americans” issue. I will bring something to our next meeting for “show and tell”, but I am really excited about one acquisition I made. It is a Canadian private airways stamp from Yukon Airways and Explorations Co. LTD. It was part of the franking for a cover that went from White Horse, Yukon to Atlin, British Columbia on April 13, 1928. This will make a very nice addition to my collection of stamps from Canada. It is pictured at the top of the next column.

Scott CL 42 on cover with Scott #142

Speaking of Baypex: In my opinion the show was a success. The dealers were happy, the attendees were happy, we had a good turnout, and we made a buck or two for the club. A huge THANK YOU goes out to all of you that helped with all the work (set up, take down, and moving dealers in and out). Your efforts are greatly appreciated by the dealers. I can’t say enough about the help you provide making our shows successful. Thanks again. Stamp Shows (See Across the Fence Post for more details) April 13 Danepex ’14 Crowne Plaza Hotel, 4402 E. Washington Ave., Madison, WI April 26 Outapex ’14 VFW Hall, 501 N. Richmond St., Appleton, WI May 17 – 18 Wiscopex ’14 Retlaw Plaza Hotel, One North Main Street, Fond du Lac, WI Schedule of Events Shown below is the program schedule for the current year:

April Show and Tell, Silent Auction May Election of Officers, Silent Auction June Joint Meeting with Appleton in Green Bay,

Silent Auction (no business meeting) July Silent Auction (no business meeting) August Silent Auction (no business meeting)