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By Nicholas Lombardi
If it's springtime in New York, it must be time for the Mega Show at
Madison Square Garden in the heart of Manhattan. Just like last spring,
the four-day show been held in "The World's Most Famous Arena." The show
floor was occupied by more than one hundred dealers, postal
administrations/agencies, and societies, including the United States
Stamp Society. Our booth, located near the front of the hall, was
staffed throughout the four days of the show and served as both a
meeting place for current members as well as a means of attracting new
members. Our society banner along with a display of our current books,
reprints, and past copies of The Specialist made an attractive showing
and resulted in six new members.
The show served as the venue for the First Day ceremony for the
Northeast Deciduous Forest issue, an attractive mural sheet containing
ten different stamps based on drawings made by John Dawson. The ceremony
was well attended and the USPS was kept busy selling the new stamps
during the entire show. Dawson was on hand Thursday to sign covers,
sheets of stamps, and other philatelic items.
This World Series of Philately show featured a competition composed of
27 exhibits. The entries consisted of 19 multi-frame exhibits and eight
single framers. Seven exhibits were U.S.-related and covered topics such
as usages of the 1½¢ full face Harding stamp of 1930 and a study of the
1847 issues. The Statue of Freedom Award was won by Andrew McFarlane for
"First Days of the 1929 George Rogers Clark Commemorative." The
Philatelic Foundation provided a special treat by presenting a six frame
exhibit titled "Fakes and Forgeries."
As mentioned earlier, our booth was a popular place for members to get
together and exchange information. Although most of those who stopped by
were from the immediate area, we were pleased to meet members form as
far away as Florida, Maryland and Rhode Island. A special thanks goes
out to Joe Chervenyak for helping man our booth on a number of days. Those
visiting the booth included:
| Richard Nazar | Gary Weiss |
| Steven Rod | Andy Kupersmit |
| A. Warren Scheller | Bob Loffler |
| Doug D'Avino | Charles G. Groneman |
| Andrew Marussich | Labron Harris |
| Greg Vaupotic | Jorge Serpa |
| Stan Polchinski | Stan Sablak |
| George Masseo | Stash Polchinski |
| Jim Hrbs | Dave Steidley |
| Fred Skvara | Steve Suffet |
| Bill Crowe | Frank Kaplan |
| Jim Kloetzel | Marvin Platt |
| Keith Bantz | John M. Pancia, Jr. |
| Stephen Goceliak | Al Zalesin |
| Ron Lesher | Brian Blechman |
| Roger Brody | Jerry Davis |
| Bob Levy | Bob Rabinowitz |
| Andrew McFarland | Jacques Schiff, Jr. |
| Frank Braithwaite | Pat Walters |
| Ted Reall | L. Mcgrant |
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