Friday, October 04, 2024

My interview on the IGY stamp, now out in the American Stamp Collector and Dealer magazine

Wow, I have been gone for a while. My energy for blogging has definitely been on the low side, but I have lots of ideas, so we'll see if I can get back on track with more regular postings.

In my posts of Jan. 31, Feb. 8, Feb. 19, Feb. 25, and Feb. 29, I showed the progress of an interview in writing that I was doing for a stamp magazine. The article is now out. It was featured in a column by Rodney Juell (I've mentioned him in previous posts, as co-editor of the excellent reference work, Encyclopedia of United Stamps and Stamp Collecting) for The American Stamp Dealer & Collector. The title is "U.S. in focus: International Geophysical Year." Here is a link to a pdf of the article: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u0BWdNjiTrTHEiBTgsaySMEbImMQV_F9/view?usp=drive_link.

Rod and the magazine did a great job of formatting the text and images. And it even was the subject of the cover image for that issue, shown below.
Cover image for the American Stamp Collector & Dealer, Sept. 2024

Although the link to the pdf of the article might be more readable, here are images of the pages:





The American Stamp Collector & Dealer magazine is a publication of The American Stamp Dealers Association, Inc., "a professional organization serving philately and its dealers since 1914 ... members represent all segments of the philatelic marketplace - retail, wholesale, auctions, and online ... membership is international in scope ... representing dealers in thirty-six states and nineteen countries."

By the way, today is the 67th anniversary of the 1957 launch during the IGY of the first space satellite, Sputnik 1. Maybe I'll follow up shortly with another post related to that historic event.

Monday, May 27, 2024

My American Topical Association 1-page exhibits for 2024

Our eclipse trip to Columbus, Indiana, was great. We spent two days looking at the many examples of modern architecture. On the day of the eclipse, the clouds cleared and we had a perfect view of totality. We could see sunspots, the corona, neon-red solar prominences, Bailey's beads, and the diamond ring effect. Wow.  

Tree leaves could be used as pinhole cameras while the eclipse was partial. Some folks had fancier viewing devices. We sat on the patio of the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library designed by I.M. Pei, and watched the sun behind the Large Arch sculpture by Henry Moore and over Eliel Saarinen’s First Christian Church. Of course, except for during totality, we wore our eclipse glasses.




























The eclipse swag wasn't great in Columbus. There were much better postcards when I was in Casper for the eclipse seven years ago. So I bought a regular postcard with the C-for-Columbus icon and an architecturally themed picture, put an eclipse sticker on the address side, and got it postmarked in Columbus on the day of the eclipse.

On to the main topic for today. The American Topical Association (ATA), dedicated to the genre of philately known as topical collecting, has an online one-page exhibit display series, now in its fourth year. 

“My One-Page Exhibit!” is a virtual program that encourages experienced and novice exhibitors to tell a story related to philatelic materials from their collections. Since the inaugural year, “My One-Page Exhibit!” has attracted philatelists of all experience levels and from around the world. Originally designed to display these mini-exhibits through the final day of Stamp Collecting Month (October), the site has been expanded to make past years' exhibits available for everyone.

This year there were over 200 submissions. I entered two exhibits, one for each of my collecting interests. They are designed to fit an 11" x 17" page. One of these, of course, is on the IGY. The other represents my collection about North American earthquakes, which so far is not detailed in a blog or otherwise, although I am contemplating publicizing it via social media.

My IGY 1-page exhibit, "The United States Stamp for the International Geophysical Year," focuses on the U.S. IGY stamp itself, using material that I have largely covered in previous blog posts, but reorganized for this exhibit.

You can see the exhibit online. It includes links to the higher resolution scans of the various philatelic items in my Flickr account.

This is an image of the exhibit:

And, if you need a third option, you can look at or download a pdf file of the exhibit stored in my Google drive.

There was another exhibit submitted about the IGY which I was pleased to find: "To the Karman line and beyond!: An introduction to the International Geophysical Year," by Sarah Giavedoni. You can see her exhibit here.

My earthquake 1-page exhibit is titled "Mail Sent Soon After the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake." It shows the corner of a cover sent right before the earthquake, and three postcards sent from San Francisco within a week of the event, including messages about the earthquake.

You can see that exhibit onlineIt also includes links to the higher resolution scans of the various philatelic items.

This is an image of that exhibit:

Again, if you need a third option, you can look at or download a pdf file.

Thanks to the ATA for providing this opportunity which matches the level at which I would prefer to display parts of my collections. There is a more traditional and formal type of philatelic exhibiting, which can include hundreds of items on multiple frames. The rules governing such exhibits are extensive, and the judging can be tough (although helpful), so I've not risen to that challenge yet. If you are interested, here is a 32-page document on how to prepare a philatelic exhibit, from the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors.

Thursday, April 04, 2024

Solar eclipses and the IGY

Last night I was watching the PBS Nova show on the Great American Eclipse, taking place next Monday. (I have been watching Nova for over 40 years.) There are many other great sources for learning about the eclipse, such as this one from Astronomy Magazine. The Nova show made me think I should do a quick post on eclipses and the IGY.

Here is a briefer summary from National Geographic of what happens during a solar eclipse:

My editor and I are headed off to Columbus, Indiana, to see the eclipse, weather permitting. This will be my third total eclipse experience. My first was in March 7, 1970. I was driving down from college with a roomie to see it in Virginia, when I rear ended the car in front of me, and was towed to the car hospital. But we did get to see the eclipse from there! Then seven years ago (eclipses follow various rhythms, including a recurrence after seven years), I went to Casper Wyoming to see the eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017.

Cover from the 2017 eclipse in Casper, Wyoming. Stamp is Scott 5211, when the fingertip heat is applied to the thermochromic ink, the thermochromic ink disappears, revealing the photo of the Moon underneath. Cachet by KSC.

People had all kinds of ways of observing this event:







Solar studies were a major component of the IGY. In fact, the IGY was scheduled to be at a time of solar maximum, and when eclipses would occur. The U.S. IGY stamp as well as a number of IGY cover cachets illustrate solar activity.

First Day cover for U.S. IGY stamp (Scott 1107) showing solar activity, with a hand-painted solar cachet by B. Kraft. Cover US120 in my collection.

In a previous post about the IGY calendar, I noted that these eclipses were noted as special days of observation on the IGY calendar.

Most calendar years have two solar eclipses. And, there were three solar eclipses during the 18-month long IGY:

Oct. 23, 1957 - total

April 19, 1958 - annular

Oct. 12, 1958 - total

Plans for observing the last one, which provided better geography for observing than the other total eclipse, are described in the IGY Bulletin, number 12, June, 1958, p. 1-6. Walter Sullivan discusses the eclipse observations in his great book on the IGY, Assault on the Unknown, McGraw-Hill, 1961, Chapter 11, Eclipse, pp. 182-188. I may say more about these articles in my next post, but I need to finish packing. 

Why travel 10 hours to see a total eclipse, when I could see a 90% eclipse here in Lancaster? You can experience so much more during totality. This xkcd cartoon illustrates the difference:

xkcd 2914. "A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky."

I am taking my eclipse glasses to watch the eclipse develop outside of  the 4 minutes of totality, so be sure you also view the sun safely! Never look at the sun directly except when it totally eclipsed.