CHICAGO – The Collectors Club of Chicago is pleased to announce the winner of the 2023 Pratt Award, which recognizes articles or other publications related to the philately of Newfoundland as judged by the Pratt Award Committee as being significant and of academic merit. It is awarded in the year following its publishing.

The 2023 recipient is Dean W. Mario of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, for “Newfoundland’s Postal Censorship During the Great War” in BNA Topics Vol. 80, No. 3.

The committee noted the article gave an exceptional explanation of why and how Newfoundland formalized plans to censor civil mail. Further, it included pictorial descriptions of three types of censorship hand stamps of Newfoundland and described foreign censorship on mail to and from Newfoundland. The committee appreciated how the article gave substantial coverage to a small niche in Newfoundland’s postal history.

The CCC Pratt Award is named for Robert H. Pratt, the eminent Newfoundland stamp and postal history collector, researcher, and author. Since 1997, the award has been bestowed upon the author(s) of the best-judged article(s) or book(s) published on Newfoundland philately.

The annual award is US$1,000, which is given to one or more winners. If there are multiple winners in a year, they share the prize.

Further details about the award and past winners are available at https://www.collectorsclubchicago.org/pratt-newfoundland-philately-award/.