Sunday, September 20, 2009

2009 Luff Awards

The Luff Awards are the most prestigious awards presented by the 38,000-member American Philatelic Society. Established in 1940 in honor of prominent American philatelist, John N. Luff and APS president from 1907 to 1909, the awards are presented each year at APS StampShow for meritorious contributions to philately by living philatelists.

This year’s winners are Kees Adema and David A. Kent.

In addition to being past president of the American Society for Netherlands Philately (1997–2006) and a current governor of the Collectors Club of New York as well as a member of the club’s editorial board, Adema is a fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London, a member of the Nederlandse Academie voor Filatelie in Utrecht and the Académie Européenne de Philatélie in Paris. His exhibit “Early Postal Markings of the Netherlands” won a national grand award, five large gold awards from the Féderation Internationale de Philatélie along with special prizes and felicitations of the jury for research, and was shown in the FIP Championship Class. It also received the “Golden Posthorn” award — recognizing outstanding research — at the specialized postal history competition in Sindelfingen, Germany in 2000. Another exhibit, “Dutch Mail in Times of Turmoil 1568–1839,” won a large gold award and felicitations of the jury for research. The exhibit has been expanded and received two more large gold medals in international competition and the Grand Prix in the Master Class at Naposta 2005 in Hannover, Germany.

David Kent is perhaps best known for his philatelic writing and editing. However, he has distinguished himself in several different organizations by holding office and in particular by serving as a volunteer at local, regional, national, and international shows. He has written more than 2,000 philatelic articles that have appeared in the general philatelic press as well as in specialist society journals. Despite the nationwide trend in recent years for general newspapers to eliminate stamp columns, David continues to write a popular one for the Hartford (CT) Courant and has done so for more than twenty-five years.

His journal editing dates back to the 1950s when he edited The Confederate Stamp Album, journal of the Confederate Stamp Alliance. In 1991 he was named a staff writer for Mekeel’s Weekly Stamp News, and today is Associate Editor of Mekeel’s & Stamps Magazine. For the past fifteen years he has edited the Military Postal History Society Bulletin, to which he also contributes researched articles. For his extensive editing and writing in our hobby he was elected to the APS Writers Hall of Fame in 2007.

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posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 AM