The following obituary of Richard F. "Dick" Winter, RDP, was written by Colin Tabeart, RDP, a longtime friend.
Dick Winter lost his final battle against cancer on 13 March and the world of postal history, and more particularly maritime postal history, lost a keen analytical mind and a giant of our hobby.
Dick joined the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1955, serving on surface ships for some years before being selected by the formidable Admiral Rickover to join the nuclear submarine service. After a period in USS Tecumseh, a Polaris missile boat, Dick was promoted to command another Polaris boat, USS James K Polk for the next 4 years. He was promoted again to Captain and given a shore appointment, where he had a little more time to build on an earlier interest in philately.
Dick told me he became intrigued by a bunch of stampless transatlantic covers that had various CENTS markings on them that no-one could tell him what they meant. He started digging to unveil the interesting world of accountancy markings under various Anglo-US Postal Conventions. One example of his dedication to the hobby was when, on the death of Walter Hubbard, he wanted to finish their work on the North Atlantic mail steamers. This required study of Lloyd’s Lists, and Dick took 2 weeks leave and flew to England to work at the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the only place he knew of that held a complete set of that publication. The result was the publication of North American Mail Sailings 1840-1875 (NAMS) in 1988, a classic that endures as a ‘must have’ in the library of any transatlantic collector.
I was lucky enough to be able to meet with and help Dick a little during his Greenwich research and we became firm friends. I was then able to learn over the years from a master tutor whose gentle guidance and enormous encouragement showed me how to go about researching my own interests, a guidance and encouragement shared by many of us lucky enough to have his help, so unstintingly given.
His philatelic achievements and honours are too numerous to list here, but perhaps the ones he would have been most proud of were: the first ever international large gold for an entirely stampless exhibit; an international large gold for one of his books – a very rare award for literature; and his election to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists. He was the editor of the Foreign Mails section of Chronicle, Journal of the US Philatelic Classics Society, and later the president of that prestigious Society for four years. With his good friend James van der Linden Dick helped to set up the elite International Postal History Federation, hosting meetings and writing papers for that very distinguished body.
Dick was a foremost authority on the numerous mid-nineteenth century postal conventions and treaties affecting the mails between America and Europe, sharing his copious knowledge in detail in two large volumes Understanding Transatlantic Mails, classics that will probably never be out-dated. Most recently, in 2022, in collaboration with his great friend John Barwis, he published North Atlantic Non-Contract Steamship Sailings 1838-1875, opening up a new area of collecting interests for transatlantic collectors.
One of the all-time greats amongst postal historians, Dick will long be remembered for his gentle encouragement, kindness, and willingness to help by so many who sought his expertise. After we have all gone his lasting legacy will be his books, all of which are classics that set the bar so very high and will be referred to as long as this hobby lasts.
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