“Philatelic Research and the British Library”
David Beech
David Beech was the curator of the British Library Philatelic Collections from 1983–2013 becoming Head of Philatelic Collections in 1991.
He is a Fellow and past President of the Royal Philatelic Society London. In 2013, it was announced that Beech was to receive the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award for outstanding lifetime accomplishments in the field of philately. He is a member of The Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand, The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, the Collectors Club of New York, the American Philatelic Research Library and the Académie Europeénne de Philatélie.
In October 2016 David was keynote speaker for the Grand Opening of the American Philatelic Research Library.
“Copyright and Philately”
Charles Oppenheim
Charles Oppenheim is a Visiting Professor at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland and is an independent consultant. Until 2009, Charles was Professor of Information Science and Head of the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University. He has delivered presentations and published over 650 journal articles, conference papers, reports, books and book chapters on the subjects of copyright, intellectual property rights and other legal issues relevant to library and information work and to academic research.
“Moving House – A New Home for the Royal Philatelic Society London”
Chris King
Chris King was elected as a signatory to the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists at Ypres in 2014, and currently serves on the RDP Board of Election, and the RDP trust.
As Chairman of The British Philatelic Trust, he guided the digitization of the Crawford Library at the British Library. Chris was Co-Founder of The Global Philatelic Library along with Frank Walton RDP, an initiative that consolidated listings of philatelic publications, archives, and museum items held by 27 worldwide philatelic libraries.
He currently serves on the RPSL Publications Committee and the Museum Committee of the Museum of Philatelic History. Chris is a specialist in the philately of Scandinavia, particularly Schleswig and is a nationally and internationally accredited philatelic juror. In 2019 he oversaw the relocation of the RSPSL.
“Christmas Stamp Design Process"
Illustrator Alan Dunne
Alan Dunne is an illustrator and author based in Ireland, working in painting, picture books, graphic printmaking, paper-craft and moving images.
He is passionate about all aspects of the graphic arts and is hugely interested in vernacular design and uncovering stories through cultural-historical archives.
Before becoming an independent artist, he worked for 12 years in broadcast design for RTÉ Television, Ireland’s national public service broadcaster. His work has won various design awards and he is shortlisted for the World Illustration Awards for his commissioned postage stamps designs for An Post, Ireland's postal service.
“Women in Philately”
Lisa Foster, Women Exhibitors
Lisa Foster, a female philatelist, exhibitor, and lifelong stamp collector has been a member of Women Exhibitors (WE) since its inception in 2007, and currently serves as President.
A member of the Northwest Federation of Stamp Clubs (NWFSC), Ms. Foster has been a Regional Philatelic judge since 2015, serves on the committee to promote exhibiting and was awarded the Northwest Distinguished Philatelist Award in 2019. She was Guest Editor of the February 2020 issue of The American Philatelist, which was devoted to Women in Philately.
Ms. Foster is a 25-plus year member of APS with additional philatelic memberships with the ATA, AFDCS and AAPE.
Presenting at the APS Virtual Stamp Show will support a goal of WE’s “Plan to Promote Women in Philately” by increasing accessibility through online philatelic events.
“Hometown Collecting: People and Places via Postcards and Postmarks”
Cheryl Ganz
Cheryl R. Ganz, is on the APS Board of Vice-Presidents and is the Smithsonian National Postal Museum Curator Emerita. She enjoys a life-long interest in zeppelins and airmail. Her interest led her to focus on zeppelin mail worldwide with specialization in U.S. airships, the 1933 Graf Zeppelin Chicago flight, and the Hindenburg. She also collects Door County, Wisconsin, postcards and postal history. This is the inspiration for this hometown presentation with a case study of Washington Island postal history.
Her many awards include the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists, APS Luff Award, PF Neinken Award, and CC Lichtenstein Award, and AAMS Aerophilatelic Hall of Fame. Ganz earned a PhD in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has authorEd several books.
"United States Mails:
Its First 80 Years Without Stamps”
Robert G. Rose
Sponsored by the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society
Robert G. Rose is a lifelong philatelist, an active society member, an author. He is the recipient of numerous exhibitor awards including Chicagopex, NOJEX, March Party,and NAPEX.
While attending graduate school in New York, Rose worked for Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries as the lot describer for the Lilly Collection that included Lilly’s Inverted Jenny. Mr. Rose remains an active member in several philatelic organizations.
He serves as Chairman of the Board for the Philatelic Foundation, is a member of the Board of Governors for the Collectors Club, serves as Governor for the United States Stamp Society, the Regional Vice President for the United State Philatelic Classics Society, Chairman of the NOJEX Stamp Show.
He is the Chairman of the New Jersey Postal History Society and is a former member of the Smithsonian Council of Philatelists. He is currently a member of the Royal Philatelic Society and the Jockey Hollow Stamp Club.
“Baseball and Stamp Collecting:
Covering all the Bases”
James Gates
Jim Gates has served as Library Director at the National Baseball Hall of Fame since 1995 where he is responsible for the management of more than 3 million documents related to our great National Pastime.
This collection includes books, player files, photographs, scrapbooks, personal papers, many hours of recorded media, along with a baseball philatelic collection.
Jim and his staff work with museum curators, the media, publishers, educators, researchers, fans, and anyone who is interested in conducting baseball research. He had previously served in academic libraries for almost fifteen years.
During his career Jim has authored multiple articles, delivered lectures on baseball history around the country, and has served in an editorial capacity on multiple book, magazine and museum publications. He also serves as host for the Annual Cooperstown Symposium on "Baseball and American Culture. He has been a stamp collector since the 1960s.
"ESPER: The Art of Philatelic Inclusivity"
Warachal Faison, MD, CMD
Dr. Warachal Faison is the President of the Ebony Society for Philatelic Events and Reflections (ESPER) . She has served as the Director of Social Media for ESPER since 2015 expanding its outreach via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. She has participated in other roles including actively participating as a member of the ESPER Media Task Force, interviewed stamp artist Jerry Pinkney during the 2016 World Stamp Show, APS (American Philatelic Society) Membership Committee member, and lecturer, including “Who is Dorothy Height?” and “Let us Not Forget the Woman’s Rights Man” at the 2017 and 2018 Southeastern Stamp Expo, respectively.
She focuses on a number of themes as she collects stamps and covers. In particularly, she is drawn to philatelic material highlighting the following: Black history, women, health, places she has visited, and childhood interests. Why does she collect? Her answer is simple…hashtag included: #StampsTeach!
Dr. Faison is a geriatric psychiatrist and Senior Medical Director, Neuroscience and Pain at Pfizer. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2008, Dr. Faison was the Clinical Director, Alzheimer’s Research & Clinical Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Upon completion of her undergraduate degree at North Carolina Central University, her medical training was completed at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine as well as Duke University School of Medicine
"Cachet Making"
Nirlay Kundu
Born in Chinsurah, India in 1969, he was raised in Kolkata, India and earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at Jadavpur University, India. Subsequently he earned a Master of Science in Design Engineering at leicester University, United Kingdom and a Master of Business Administration at Babson College, Massachusetts. His job brought him to the United States and he became a US citizen. Nirlay is employed as a software telecom engineer. he is married and has two teenage daughters.
Nirlay is a self taught artist with no professional training. He reports that his father had the most influence on his artistic development. He became involved in catchetmaking after he moved to the United States in 1995. He has collected stamps for 40 years. He has a worldwide collection and his favorite stamp is the Penny Black.
His first cachet was the Lewis and Clark issue of 2004. He produced two different catchets of this issue in the editions of twenty. On this issue Nirlay printed the background and text and then hand drew and hand painted the images of Lewis and Clark. He used a similar technique for Greta Garbo and the 2004 Disney issue prior to discarding this technique. His preferred medium is watercolor as it is quick. He also worked in acrylic and ground stone. Nirlay reports that his technique has changed. he now composes his artwork with mixed media. he draws a quick pencil sketch and then uses watercolor and gives finishing touches with an ink pen. For more involved miniature paintings he uses a very fine brush.
"Lu Tianjiao: The First Female Stamp Designer of the People’s Republic of China, 1955-2001"
Richard Morel, PhD
Since 2014, Richard has assisted with the Philatelic Collection’s front and back of house services and operations. He began his career at the Royal Household before being employed by the British Library in 2004 as a Curator for the Pre-1858 India Office Records. Richard has lectured and presented in the United Kingdom, Germany, China and the United States on a wide variety of subjects including history, philately, paper money, sigillography and numismatics. His interests also cover postal-history, stamp design, cultural history, colonial history, the East India Company, Anglo-Chinese Relations, the history of collecting, visual-material culture and archival theory.
Richard is a prolific writer of articles for academic journals and magazines. In 2020, he was awarded the Tapling Medal for his article on the design of the India 1852 Half Anna Red ‘Scinde Dawk'. He is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and a member of the American Philatelic Society and the International Banknote Society. He has served on the councils of the Royal Numismatic Society and the Royal Philatelic Society, London and was a member of the Royal Philatelic Society’s Library Committee.
Mary Love
"African American Suffragists and the Vote"
Mary is an adjunct professor of Christian education at Hood Theological Seminary.
Love has a valuable, focused collection of U.S. Postal Service stamps that celebrate black heritage. She incorporates her stamps into storyboards, collages, posters, framed displays and other media as a way to educate. Fascinated by stamps as a child, Love tried an early homemade collection of stamps she would cut off envelopes on mail coming to her house.
Her preservation of that collection failed miserably, and she gained interest again only when a seminary professor took her on a tour of the postal museum in Washington and she also attended a stamp show.
Love began seriously collecting about 20 years ago. It was then that she knew the proper preservation techniques and also began her on focus African-American heritage stamps because of their educational value. Her favorite stamp is that of Ida B. Wells, who was born a slave in Mississippi in 1862.
Frank Walton
“The Global Philatelic Library Project”
Frank Walton is a distinguished author, editor, exhibitor and international philatelic judge. Frank was president of the Royal Philatelic Society London from 2015-2017 and past editor of The London Philatelist from July 2001-December 2017. He is a Fellow of the RSPL and in 2015 became a signatory to the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists.
Walton’s collecting interests and area of specialization in philately concerns Sierra Leone which in turn lead to his assuming the position of Honorary Editor of Cameo, the journal of the West Africa Study Circle, from 1996. He has published numerous books and over 200 articles in specialist and national journals.
Frank has also been deeply involved in a number of other philatelic projects such as the Global Philatelic Library as well as serving on a number of philatelic committees including as a member of the organizing committee of London 2010 International Stamp Exhibition, as Commissioner General of London 2015 Europhilex and currently as the Chairman for the London 2020 (now 2022) International Stamp Exhibition show.
Nancy Stahl
"Postage Stamp Illustration"
Nancy Stahl is an celebrated illustrator who lives in New York City. She attended Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and also studied at School of Visual Arts. She has worked in a career split equally between traditional media and digitally created art. In 1989 she was also invited to Adobe’s headquarters to test a pre-release of the original Photoshop. She began to work exclusively on the computer two years later.Nancy’s assignments have ranged from editorial work for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine to corporate identity, packaging and advertising for diverse companies including: The Disney Family Museum, Stonyfield Farms, Time-Life Music, and the National Parks Service. She has also created work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and the US Postal Service, which has used over thirty-five of her illustrations on postage stamps.In 2012, Nancy was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. Her work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions in the US and abroad.
Dr. Frederick P. Lawrence
"Facsimiles and Forgeries of the 1920 Siam (Thailand) 'Scout’s Fund' Overprints”
Frederick P. Lawrence has been collecting stamps since 1960, when he earned the Boy Scouts stamp collecting merit badge. During the 60's and 70's, he formed one of the most complete collections of Scouts and Guides on stamps in existence at the time. In the early 80's he focused his collecting interests on the three earliest Scouts on stamps issues: 1900 Cape of Good Hope Mafeking siege photographic ("blueprint") stamps, 1918 Czechoslovakia Scout Post issue, and 1920-1921 Siam "Scout's Fund" overprints. Dr. Lawrence is a member of the APS, RPSL, AAPE, SOSSI, SGSC, ABWPS, and TPS, the President of STP, and a Director of SCP. He has served as a US Commissioner for an international philatelic exhibition and as awards chairman, exhibits chairman, societies liaison, and jury coordinator for a US national-level, WSP-qualifying shows.