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 online. It 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.