GREEN BAY PHILATELIC SOCIETY 2016 Baltic Terrace, Green Bay, WI 54311 President: Darryl Ruprecht 468-6348 Vol. 34 No. 2 February, 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

FEBRUARY MEETING – Happy Valentine’s Day WHERE: BROWN COUNTY SENIOR CENTER WHEN: February 20, 2014 (third Thursday of every month)

TIME: Open 7:00 pm, business meeting 7:30 pm PROGRAM: Video on Selling Your Stamps 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. January’s volunteer is Randy Younger.

Winter Months Reminder: in the event of adverse weather the meeting will be canceled if the Green Bay Public Schools are canceled.

January Meeting

It was great to have Emmanuel and Yessinia back with us again as well as member Bill Robinson. It has been a while since Bill has been able to make a meeting due to his Stamp Shop hours. 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 and asked if someone could pinch hit for him. Randy Younger volunteered to pick up the key before 4:00 p.m. and be there to open the doors by 7:00 p.m. – thanks Randy. Proposed Changes to Constitution, Rules of Order and By-Laws – It was moved by Dave Devroy and seconded by Randy Younger to amend Section 6 of Article 5 of the club’s Constitution to strike “The fiscal year shall begin on one June.” The motion passed by the necessary 2/3 majority. This was the first of two votes necessary, it will need to pass a similar vote in February by the same 2/3 majority. If the amendment to the Constitution passes, we will vote on the proposed changes to the Rules of Order and By-Laws. Those amendments only need to be passed by a simple majority at one meeting. Please look over your copy of the proposed changes to all three documents and come prepared to vote on them at the February meeting. Thanks to Kirk Becker for

his effort to lead the effort keep the documents by which we operate current and functional. As Kirk commented at the January meeting, the fact that these documents have not required modification until now and even now the changes are minimal shows great foresight on the part of the original authors. Juniors Committee: the Einstein Project was again a success with a large number of both kids and adults stopping by the booth. Several students were very interested with one inquiring about our club meetings. Thanks to Dave Burrows who again organized our efforts and to all those who helped out with this project. Show Committee: Clete will insure that the show is covered in the “Weekend Things to Do” in the Green Bay Press Gazette for the show weekend. Dealer invites went out in early January. As this is being written we have commitments from 4 dealers. Jim Stearns has again agreed to help out with publicity in the U.P. and northeast Wisconsin. Milt Wirth will take about 25 copies of our show poster to their February meeting for distribution within their club. Show posters were distributed at our January meeting. If anyone needs more, please let me know and I will get some to you. Please set aside the afternoon of Friday, March 21 to help set up the venue and then Saturday, March 22 to help move dealers in and out of the show and take down

the venue. Most importantly save some time and money to do some philatelic shopping at the show. New Business: There was no new business brought up at the January meeting. January Program: the January program was a silent auction and philatelic fellowship. February Program: The February program will be a slide/video program on “How to Sell Your Stamp Collection” and the usual silent auction.

Ray’s Ramblings Last month we finished up talking about the 2 penny reds that commemorated the sesquicentennial of our country’s independence. This kind of started a new trend in U.S. stamp issues. Many events began to be commemorated with single stamps instead of sets. This does not mean the sets went away, in fact we will start this month with a set, but there were a lot more 1 stamp issues. We will start this month with the 1932 Washington Bicentennial Issue. This set of 12 stamps commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington. According to the Harris catalogue the set was 8 years in the planning. There were many suggestions for a pictorial set similar to the Columbian Issue or the Trans-Mississippi Issue. The final designs were 12 portraits of Washington at different stages of his life. Images of the stamps in this issue are shown below:

Scott #704 – 15

The denominations of this issue began at ½ cent and went up to 10 cents. The Harris catalogue reports that these stamps were printed in single color format and in a standard size for regular issues to help save on production costs. The set was reportedly very popular. Following this issue came several single commemoratives. Among these are what I believe are the first U.S. stamps commemorating the Olympics. There were a total of 3 stamps (2 for the summer Olympics of 1932 and 1 for the winter Olympics of 1932). A picture of the winter olympics stamp is shown in the next column.

Scott #716

The winter Olympics in Febrauary of 1932 were held in Lake Placid, New York. This was the second Olympics held in the U.S. (the first was the summer Olympics of 1904 in St. Louis, MO) and the first winter Olympics. The summer Olympics of 1932 was also held in the U.S. at Los Angeles, CA a few months later. Shown below are the two stamps issued for the summer Olympics of 1932.

Scott #718 Scott #719 There were several other issues of note over the next few years. Of most interest to me is the issue commemorating Mother’s Day. This stamp depicted the painting “Portrait of my Mother” by James Whistler. It was printed both on a rotary press (perf 11 x 10 ½) and flat plate press (perf 11) as well as imperf as part of “The Farleys”. The stamp is shown below.

Scott #737

This is the rotary press issue and was issued for Mother’s Day in 1934.

The next issue of special interest to me was also issued in 1934. It was issued to commemorate the tercentenary of the discovery of Wisconsin by Europeans. This stamp was issued on July 7, 1934 right here in Green Bay. When Jean Nicolet became the first white person to set foot in Wisconsin on the shores of Green Bay, he thought he had found a passage to China. He came ashore firing two pistols in the air expecting to be greeted by Chinese (this is the event depicted on the stamp). He was disappointed when he was instead greeted by native Americans. This discovery was still significant as it indicated that the new world was much larger than had originally been thought. When Nicolet landed the native American population was comprised primarily of Winnebago, Dakota, and Menominee tribes. It wasn’t until a century later when populations of a number of other tribes grew in the area as they were pushed west by the growing population of Europeans in the east. This stamp was issued as both perforated and imperf (yep, part of “The Farleys”). The perforated variety is shown below.

Scott #739

Also issued in 1934 is another favorite of mine, the National Parks Issue. It is one of my favorites because I personally very much enjoy visiting our national parks. One of my “bucket list” (pardon the already worn out expression) items is to visit all of these national parks. So far I have been to 32 of 59 U.S. National Parks including 6 of the 10 shown in the National Parks Issue. I have not been disappointed in any of the parks I have been to. If you ever get a chance to visit any of our national parks, don’t pass it up – they truly are national treasures. I think that the engraving is beautiful as are the colors of the stamps. We owe this set to an aggressive Secretary of the Interior and a President that collected stamps. Sec. Harold Ickes felt that the American public was not very aware of the National Park system and had worked to get 1934 declared National Park Year. As president and an avid stamp collector, Franklin Roosevelt had a big say in stamp topics. He was soliciting ideas for the 1934 stamp program. Sec. Ickes thought this would be an

opportunity to advertise our national parks and help to promote them during National Parks Year. The rest is history as they say.

Scott #740-49

It is interesting to note that during this time period the postal service had a much more conservative stamp issuing policy. See the table below for the number of new issues each year through the early part of the 1930’s.

Year # of New Issues

1930 8 1931 13 1932 23 1933 9 1934 16

This includes the 12 stamp Washington Bicentennial Issue in 1932 and the 10 stamp National Parks Issue in 1934. This was about to change with “The Farleys”. As previously noted President Franklin Roosevelt was an avid stamp collector. During his early years in office there were some exciting developments in the U.S. stamp program including special souvenir sheets issued for two philatelic conventions (the APS convention in 1933 and the National Philatelic Convention in 1934). However things got carried away when Postmaster General James Farley began issuing imperf varieties of stamps for limited distribution to a lucky few. Soon some of these “limited edition” varieties were commanding a hefty price and public outcry grew. Initially Congress was going to require the stamps be recalled and destroyed, however that was impractical. Finally it was decided to print enough of these special edition stamps to make them available to anyone that wanted them. In all there were 20 of these specially printed imperf stamps in 1935 – still a very modest number given today’s plethora (U.S. new issues regularly exceed 100/year these days) of new issues every year. Following the Farley debacle the U.S. returned to a more modest stamp issuing policy. In 1936-37 what is known as the “Army and Navy Stamps” were issued. There were two sets (one

commemorating the army and one the navy). Both were comprised of 5 stamps with values from 1 cent to 5 cents. The first 4 stamps in each set depicted famous military men, ships, and residences. The 5 cent value in each set depicted the corresponding military academy for that branch of the service. The two sets are shown below.

Top Row Scott #785-89 (Army)

Bottom Row Scott #790-94 (Navy) Following the Army and Navy Issue there were several more single stamp issues that came out in 1937. My favorite of these is the Virginia Dare stamp. This stamp commemorated the 350th anniversary of the birth of the first English child (Virginia Dare) in the New World and the same anniversary of the first colony (Roanoke) in the New World. Virginia Dare was born on August 18, 1587. The Virginia Dare stamp is pictured below.

Scott #796

Isn’t the color beautiful and the design is so clean. I think this is one of the prettiest U.S. stamps. The Roanoke Island community became known as the

Lost Colony when sometime around 1590 its inhabitants all disappeared. When we lived in North Carolina there was an outdoor play called “The Lost Colony” near the outer banks of North Carolina. If you are ever in the area and are interested in that sort of thing it is well done and worth the time to see it. Dues Reminder: If you have not yet paid your dues, please get them in as soon as possible. You can send them to me at the club address at the top of the newsletter. We need every one of you to help keep our club vibrant and active. For those of you that have paid, thank you. Stamp Shows (See Across the Fence Post for more details) Mar. 1-2 Stampfest ’14, St. Aloysius Gonzaga Hall, 1435 So. 92nd St.., West Allis, WI Mar 8-9 Rockford ’14, Forest Hills Lodge, 1601 W. Lane Rd., Rockford, IL Mar. 22 Baypex ‘14 St. Matthew Multi Purpose Center, 2575 S. Webster Ave., Green Bay, WI Schedule of Events Shown below is the program schedule for the current year: February Slide/Video Show (How to Sell Your

Stamps) March Baypex ’13 Final Plans, Silent Auction 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)