In 2016, the American Philatelic Society Board of Directors created the Dealer of the Year award. In February 2020, the APS Board voted unanimously that the award should be renamed to reflect the vital lifetime contributions that dealers offer the hobby, and it was reborn as the John Walter Scott Dealer Award. John Walter Scott is known as “The Father of American Philately.” The catalog he first issued in 1868 remains the hobby standard to this day. He was a founding member of the Collectors Club of New York in 1896 and the American Stamp Dealers Association in 1914. He held numerous positions with the APS, and was elected its president in 1917.

2021 John Walter Scott Dealer – Scott Trepel 

Scott Trepel, born in 1962, has been a stamp collector since the age of nine. He started his professional stamp career as a teenager and joined Stanley Gibbons USA in 1980 and Christie’s Robson Lowe in 1981. As head of Christie’s stamp department for ten years, Scott conducted major philatelic auctions, including the sale of the Louis Grunin collection, Walter C. Klein collection, Weill Brothers’ Stock and the American Bank Note Company archives. In 1992 Scott formed a partnership with Robert A. Siegel and became president of the Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries (New York City) firm, a position he has held continuously for the past three decades. He has been personally involved in the sale of one-half billion dollars worth of stamps since starting his career more than 35 years ago. Scott held the gavel when many records were broken, including the Inverted Jenny plate block at $2.97 million, the Brazil Pack strip at $2.185 million, the Hawaiian 2c Missionary cover at $2.242 million, the Inverted Jenny single at $1.35 million and the 1c Z Grill at $935,000. In 2017, Siegel Auction Galleries sold Position 76 of the McCoy Block of the Inverted Jenny for $250,000 for the American Philatelic Research Library. 

Scott’s interest in philately runs much deeper than buying and selling stamps. He has published numerous research articles in well-respected journals and has been the 1869 Section Editor of the U.S. Classics Society’s journal for many years. He authored Rarity Revealed: The Benjamin K. Miller Collection for the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and The New York Public Library. Scott has also self-published books on the City Despatch Post and the Pony Express. He co-authored Special Mail Routes of the American Civil War with Steven Walske, published in 2008 by The Civil War Philatelic Society. He has served as 1869 section editor of the Chronicle of U.S. Classic Postal Issues since 1984.

For his research work in U.S. philately, the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society awarded Scott the Chase Cup on four separate occasions (1989, 1994, 2003 and 2006). He also won the society’s Neinken Award and 1996 Distinguished Philatelist Award.

Scott’s proudest contribution to philately has been the development of auction catalogues that incorporate a high level of research, including census data and historical background for the items offered. The catalogues he and his team produced for the Honolulu Advertiser Hawaii collection, the Robert Zoellner U.S. collection, the David Golden Carriers and Locals collection (and more recently, Hawaii), the Alan B. Whitman U.S. collection, the Twigg-Smith Pony Express collection and the Steven C. Walske Civil War Special Routes collection are all considered valuable information sources. In addition to print media, Scott has focused on developing internet resources, including the Siegel firm’s Encyclopedia, Power Search and online catalog archive. He also created InvertedJenny.com, a website devoted to the 24¢ Inverted Jenny, a stamp in which he has a particular interest. Scott has sold 64 positions from the original sheet of 100, including all of the blocks.