Richard F. Winter of the United States, Edward W.B. Proud of the United Kingdom, and Robin M. Startup of New Zealand have been invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists (RDP) at the next Philatelic Congress of Great Britain, to be held at Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday, July 26, 2008. The honorees — all three of whom have been members of the American Philatelic Society — were chosen by unanimous consent at a recent meeting of the RDP Board of Election. The board, chaired by Patrick Pearson of the United Kingdom, has as its members Tomas Bjaringer (France), Charles Goodwyn (UK), Wolfgang Hellrigl (Italy), Jane Moubray (UK), Robert Odenweller (USA), Rolf-Dieter Jaretsky (Germany), and Alan Higgins (UK).

The Roll of Distinguished Philatelists, one of philately’s highest honors, was established in 1921 by the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain with the approval of King George V, who was its first signatory. Including this year’s recipients of the honor, some 335 philatelists from forty-five countries have achieved this distinction. Previous honorees on the scroll and its side panels include no fewer than eight past presidents of the APS, the most recent being Dr. Peter P. McCann in 2007.

Richard F. Winter was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1959, he served twenty-seven years in the U.S. Navy, including four as commander of the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine USS James K. Polk in the Atlantic. After retiring in 1986, Winter worked another six years as a civilian in the communications technical-support field.

After nineteen years at sea, Winter became fascinated with the mystery and complexity of stampless overseas mail. That led him to a careful examination of foreign rates and treaties, and to the study of the steamships that carried the transatlantic mails.

For more than twenty years, he has been the Associate Editor and then Editor of the Foreign Mails Section of The Chronicle of the U.S. Classic Postal Issues, the quarterly journal of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society. He was president of the USPCS from 1992 to 1996, and is an ex officio member of its Board of Directors. He has authored more than eighty articles, most presenting new information on transatlantic mail, including original research articles for the annual Congress Book of the American Philatelic Congress in 1984, 2005, and 2006.

Winter coauthored North Atlantic Mail Sailings, 1840–75, edited by Susan M. McDonald and published by the USPCS in 1988. Documenting the voyages that carried U.S. mail for thirty-one steamship companies, Winter finished the work when coauthor Walter Hubbard suddenly died. Winter wrote Understanding Transatlantic Mail, Volume 1, published by the American Philatelic Society in 2006, and he is hard at work on Volume 2.

For his writings, Winter received the USPCS Elliott Perry Cup in 1988, the Stanley B. Ashbrook Cup in 1990, and for outstanding service to the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, he received the Lester G. Brookman Cup in 1996 and signed its Scroll of Distinguished Philatelists in 1997.

In addition to his writings, Winter has exhibited internationally since 1981, receiving ten Gold or Large Gold medals for his transatlantic mail exhibits. He also won the American Philatelic Research Library’s Cryer Award for outstanding scholarship and research in 2001. He has been a guest speaker at national and international symposia since 1990.

An APS member since 1975, Winter won the APS John N. Luff Award for Distinguished Philatelic Research in 1999, and the Collector Club of New York’s Alfred F. Lichtenstein Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to Philately in 2003. In 2002, Winter was elected a member of the International Association of Philatelic Experts (A.I.E.P.) for transatlantic mail postal history, and in 2005 he became a corresponding member of the Belgian Académie de Philatélie.

Edward W.B. (Ted) Proud is notable for his series of handbooks on British Colonial postal history, covering eighty-one colonies or protectorates. Between them, these handbooks on postmarks and postal rates illustrate more than 50,000 postal markings. Where available, the information has been extracted from official documents, many of which are reproduced in the text. Among his other works, Proud also is author of fourteen books on British and Commonwealth army postal services.

In support of these publications, Proud has formed research collections and received a Gold medal for his exhibit of Aden at Espana 2004, and subsequently exhibited “India used in Malaya” in the Court of Honour at Singapore. Other collections are being formed to support forthcoming publications, one of which is a study of British Forces mail during World War II.

As a professional philatelist, Proud served on the committee of the International Federation of Stamp Dealers Associations (IFSDA) and served as its President. He also promoted exhibitions of postal history in London and New York, and initiated the magazine Postal History International (1972–79). He has been honored by an award from Italy’s Associazione Italiana di Storia Postale for his work in promoting philately and postal history. He also is a recent member of the APS.

Robin M. Startup is the foremost postal historian in New Zealand. Startup is author of or contributor to more than sixty books, including complete sections of Volumes 3 and 4 of The Postage Stamps of New Zealand, and founder and editor of The Mail Coach, the bimonthly journal of the Postal History Society of New Zealand. For this work, he received the Fédération Internationale de Philatélie Medal for Research in 2000, and was the first recipient of the Medal for Philatelic Excellence of the New Zealand Philatelic Federation.

Startup has served in a number of administrative positions and is currently Vice President of the Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand, as well as the RPSNZ Archivist. He also is a national juror, and was Chairman of the jury at the New Zealand philatelic literature exhibitions held in 1989, 2003, and 2007.

Startup has built up an extensive reference collection of New Zealand postal markings, and was one of the first “Open Class” exhibitors pioneering that form, which he considered would be of interest to the general public as well as to philatelists.