The American First Day Cover Society (AFDCS) has granted two works the first place prize for the latest Philip Ward Jr. Memorial Award, which recognizes excellence in first-day cover literature published in 2022.
One recipient was Henry Scheuer for his two-part article, “How the Earliest Collectors Sought Out First Days,” published in the monthly American Philatelist in November and December 2022. This article also won the 2023 United States Stamp Society’s Barbara R. Mueller Award.
The other winner was a book, The Connecticut Tercentenary Issue of 1935, by Peter LaPlaca and Anthony Dewey. The book included a complete catalogue of all known cachets for its namesake issue, U.S. Scott #772.
The runner-up was Ralph Nafziger’s article, “Earliest Documented Uses of the Large Bank Note Stamps,” which appeared in the November 2022 issue of the Chronicle, the journal of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society.
Although all articles in First Days, the official journal of the AFDCS, are automatically considered for this award, “I find it interesting that none of these works was published in our journal,” said President Lloyd de Vries.
“Their publication in media not specifically about first day covers shows, in my opinion, the wider acceptance that FDCs are gaining.”