Hi folks,

My philatelic interests are—

■ Classic US (1847-1860)
■ Completing a collection of all positions of the plate 1 late 1c Franklin stamp of 1851-7
■ Postal items with "Oct 5" dates on them
■ Early 20th Century machine cancels
■ Pre-1870 New York Foreign Mail cancels

Other collections I work on (more or less) include Arizona license plates, and chrome auto dealer emblems, the sort that used to be fastened to the rear of American cars sold in the '50s and '60s. I also maintain an avid interest in art and photography. Here’s a look at me, bedazzled in front of the computer—

Here are me and Sheryll and Steve Ruecker at lunch on a visit they made down to Los Angeles in May of 2007—

Now, one of my favorite stamps, a US Scott 19 position 97L4 "curl on shoulder"—

Here’s an the earliest known use of a dated American Postal Machines Company type A-1 cancel. Its discovery by me in August 2008 pushes back the earliest known use by three weeks. This is an extreme rarity—

Below is an example of a pre-1870 New York Foreign Mail cancel—

And one of my photographs, taken while hanging from a suspension bridge, on the first day the Spruce Goose saw the light of day after having been stored for almost forty years.