Meeting Schedules and Events

Social Activities  |  2008 Schedule  |  2009 Schedule

The Club, through our Program Chairmen, is constantly recruiting speakers with specialties of interest to our membership. Speakers may be members or non-members and come to the Club from all over the world to share their knowledge with us. Throughout the hobby, it is considered as honor to be asked to speak at the Club, so the caliber of the programs is unusually high.

Each speaker is asked to bring and display his or her key pieces in the new exhibit frames of our recently renovated meeting Room. As much of the displayed material is typically part of award-winning exhibits, our members can not only see some of philately’s most prized items “up close and personal,” but also get some insightful, expert tips on exhibiting or arranging their own collections.

The public is invited free of charge to The Collectors Club’s series of semi-monthly meetings devoted to lectures and exhibits on philatelic subjects. The lectures are given by experts in the field and are attended by approximately 60 people. These experts come at their own expense, without remuneration, from numerous foreign countries and from across the continental United States and Hawaii.

Social Activities

An important feature of the Club is the chance to get together with fellow members in a relaxed and informal setting to share collecting “war stories” and just catch up.

Prior to every meeting, there is a social hour at the Clubhouse where members can mingle, share refreshments and meet guests and new members. After the program presentation, all interested members gather for dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The Club also features two very popular events—the festive Holiday Party, held at the Club every December, and the Annual Awards Dinner, which is held in May at an offsite location to showcase the Club’s coveted Lichtenstein Award presentation.

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2008 Schedule

In 2008, the Club will be closed on the following dates:

  • January 1 and 21

  • February 18

  • March 21

  • May 26

  • July 4

  • September 1

  • October 13

  • November 27 and 28

  • December 25 and 26

Visitors, please call the office before coming.

A complete list of programs for 2008 is shown below.  The 2008 Schedule is also available in a brochure from the Club secretary.

Date Topic Speaker
Jan. 9 Annual Meeting—Elections
Topic: Bring and be prepared to discuss material that is not your "normal" collecting area		  
Jan. 16 Two Hundred Years of Montserrat Postal History
Montserrat, one of the Leeward Islands in the British West Indies, has an interesting postal history that belies the size and population of the island. This presentation covers the development of the mail system, starting as early as 1769, and includes the first recorded use in 1804 of the very rare first datestamp, the Montserrat Horseshoe.  It continues with highlights of the various stamp issuing eras up to the middle of the twentieth century.		 Peter McCann
Sarasota, FL
Feb. 6 2,000 Miles in 24 Hours—The First Airmail Route
The 1918 decision by the Post Office to establish a regular scheduled air mail service was met with many problems. The long term goal of the Post Office was to establish a dependable transcontinental air ail route. Items are shown from every flight in the experiment that resulted in establishment of the private contract airmail contracts (CAMs) in 1926-27.		 Patrick A. Walters
Denville, NJ
Feb. 20 Tasmania
This presentation is mainly on the first issues of Tasmania known as "Courier" stamps, subsequent to the author's article in the August-September 2006 issue for the Courier 4 pence.  This will refer to the paper variety known on 1 penny stamps in comparison with the paper used for 4 pence stamps. Also some examples of "Courier" stamps on cover will be shown to highlight the typical usage of postage rates and routes.		 Koichi Sato
Kawasaki, Japan
Mar. 7 Youth and the Future of Philately
or: "How Can Philately Compete with the Fascination of Computers?"  In an age of computer whiz-bangs and shortened attention spans, does philately have a chance of attracting new adherents?  Nancy Clark answers an emphatic "Yes!"  She has coordinated and supported education with stamps for more than 30 years.		 Nancy B.Z. Clark
Marstons Mills, MA
Mar. 19 Northwest Postal History
Featured material will include fur-trade mail by canoe brigade, establishment of the first post offices west of the Rocky Mountains at Astoria and Oregon City in 1847, private competition to the government mail by early express companies in the 1850s, gold-rushes to Idaho and Eastern Oregon in the early 1860s, steamboat markings on the Columbia River and Transcontinental railroad influences from 1869.		 Dale E. Forster
Portland, OR
Apr. 2 Grandma's House (1870–1950)
This display division exhibit includes a wide variety of philatelic material, interspersed with Cinderellas, ephemera, advertising covers and cards, and an array of unusual collateral material, many pieces of which actually belong to ancestors of the exhibitor.  It "visits" each of the rooms and areas of a house, showing various features of each location.		 Barbara Harrison
Ringoes, NJ
Apr. 16 Schism in the Kingdom of the Netherlands:  The Belgian Revolt 1830–1839
Following the Napoleonic era, the great European powers wanted to create a barrier to the north of France to prevent future expansionist designs.  During the Vienna Congress in 1814 and 1815 , the areas to the north were combined to form the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the artificial union was doomed to fail.  By 1830, Belgium declared its independence.  This presentation explores the postal consequences of those events..		 Kees Adema
Fairfield  CT
May 7 Annual Awards Dinner—Honoring Lichtenstein Awardee Charles J. Peterson  
May 21 Precanceled Rarities Arnold Selengut
Temple Terrace, FL
Jun. 4 A Lifetime Treasure Hunt Kenneth J. Kutz
Darien, CT
Jun. 18 Saudi Arabia Tarik Alireza
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
  Summer Recess  
Sep. 3 South Africa:  De La Rue and the Early Twentieth Century Stamps Brian Trotter
London, UK
Sep. 17 Victorian Natal Keith Klugman, M.D.
Atlanta, GA
Oct. 1 U.S. Mails Carried by Water:  Seventeenth Century to GPU Hugh Feldman
London, UK
Oct. 15 The Official Postal Cards of Spain (1873–1938) Arturo Martin de Nicolas
Austin, TX
Nov. 5 The Club Monte Carlo Visits the Collectors Club
Nov. 19 The Postal Stationery of Chile Ross A Towle
San Francisco, CA
Dec. 3 The Postal Stationery of Cyprus Alex Ioannides
Dec. 17 Board of Governors’ Open House  

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2009 Schedule

In 2009, the Club will be closed on the following dates:

  • January 1 and 19

  • February 16

  • April 10

Visitors, please call the office before coming.

As the programs for 2009 are defined, the schedule will be posted below.

Date Topic Speaker
Jan. 14 Annual Meeting—Elections
Topic: Probing Philatelic Possibilities		 Steven J. Rod
South Orange, NJ
Jan. 21 The Imperforate One Cent Blues of 1851–57 Lawrence J. Hunt
Pluckemin, NJ
Feb. 4 All Roads Lead to San Francisco:  The Private Companies that Carried the Mail in the Early West Larry Lyons
Westport, CT
Feb. 18 The French Connection to the Lufthansa South Atlantic Airmail Service Dieter Leder
Meersburg, Germany
Mar. 4 Philatelic Maps Diane DeBlois and Robert Dalton Harris
West Sand Lake, NY
Mar. 18 The Civil War in New Mexico and Arizona Territories, 1861–1865 John Birkinbine II
Tucson, AZ

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