Council of Philatelists

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The Council of Philatelists provides the National Postal Museum with philatelic advice, advises on engagement with the world of philately, promotes NPM’s purpose and programs to the nation, and helps build the financial base of the Museum. Members are appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents.

Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá

Antonio Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design opening Studio A in 1988. Since then his studio has won awards of excellence in design from local, national and international design institutions including AIGA, Print, Communication Arts and Graphis. His clients include many prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian. Alcalá is an adjunct faculty member of MICA’s MFA graphic design program and is also responsible for the design of US postage stamps as an art director for the United States Postal Service. In 2011, Alcalá was nominated for two National Design Awards from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. His work is represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.

Molly Byrne
Molly Byrne

Molly Byrne is a business owner, designer, and philanthropist active in the Dallas community. She co-created Seven Bridges Foundation, a public sculpture garden and museum in Greenwich, Conn. Currently, she serves on the board of directors of the Dallas Theater Center and the Dallas Museum of Art. She is president and founder of TurningPoint Foundation, which generously supported the National Postal Museum’s new Byrne Education Loft, a space that allows the museum to provide students, educators and families with diverse programming opportunities.

Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.
Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.

Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr., currently serves on the board of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society. He has also served on the board of the Philatelic Foundation and is a member of the Collectors Club of New York and the Royal Philatelic Society. From 1984 to 1999, he was president and chief executive officer of Symantec Corporation. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy, serving in the nuclear submarine force from 1970 to 1979.

Ian C. Gibson-Smith
Ian C. Gibson-Smith

Ian C. Gibson-Smith is president of Allied Defense Industries, Inc., a defense consulting company specializing in the provision of spare parts, purchasing, and logistic services. Born in England, his family moved here in his youth and he attended the College of William and Mary. He is dedicated to the arts, human rights, and community support. He is the founder and chair of the IanThom Foundation, a public charity established in memory of Thomas G. Martin. As a philatelist, he specializes in the issues of Great Britain.

Scott Guthrie
Scott Guthrie

Scott Guthrie has been collecting since childhood and focuses on the U.S. Classic Period, Great Britain Line Engraved Issues, and British Commonwealth. His specialty is the U.S. 1-cent Franklin, 1861—1867. He is a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London, U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, Great Britain Philatelic Society and American Philatelic Society. A computer scientist by training, Scott is executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI business. He is a graduate of Duke University and lives with his wife and two children in Seattle, Washington.

Sonny Hagendorf
Sonny Hagendorf

Sonny Hagendorf is a dealer and specialist in rare U.S. postage stamps through his firm Columbian Stamp Company, Inc. He has been a professional philatelist for over thirty years, and during that time he has purchased or brokered many of the great United States rarities. Along with countless other philatelic treasures, he has sold five of the six blocks of the Jenny Inverts. He is an expert consultant to the Philatelic Foundation and serves on the board of several local charities in his community.

Elizabeth M. Hisey
Elizabeth M. Hisey

Elizabeth M. Hisey, has been involved in philately for the past 10 years. She is an APS-accredited judge and a member of the Council on the Accreditation of National Exhibitions and Judges.  She is currently secretary of the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors and treasurer of Women Exhibitors. She collects and exhibits food-related philately, turn of the century advertising covers, and early 1950s Bolivia. She was educated in England.

Yamil H. Kouri
Yamil H. Kouri

Yamil H. Kouri, Jr. became interested in postal history in the late 1970s. He has written close to 200 articles and monographs on postal history, primarily dealing with the maritime and military mail of Spain, former Spanish colonies, Cuba, the United States and several European countries. His most recent​​​​ book is Spanish Colonial and Mexican Mail in the United States​​​ (with Leo J. Harris). Kouri is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London​​​​​, numbered member of the Real Academia Hispánica de Filatelia e Historia Postal, and member of the European Academy of Philately. He has held leadership positions in the Postal History Society, the American Philatelic Society, American Philatelic Congress, U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, and the Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History. He is the former president of the Cuban Philatelic Society and past editor of its journal, The Cuban Philatelist. He is vice-president of the Federación Interamericana de Filatelia (FIAF).​​​​​​​ He is a U.S. Philatelic Classics Society Distinguished Philatelists and in 2020 he​​​​​​​​​ signed the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain's Roll of Distinguished Philatelists. When he is not engaged in philately, sports or family activities, he works as an oncologist and hematologist in the Boston area.

Anna Lee
Anna Lee

Born in Shanghai, raised in Hong Kong, and educated in the United States and Great Britain, Anna Lee founded Phila China Limited in 2001. This stamp auction house headquartered in Hong Kong went on to break numerous records for stamps sold in public auction. Inspired by her father, a fervent collector of Chinese stamps, she has built up one of the greatest China collections ever assembled and contributes immensely to the promotion of philately in the region, serving as vice president of the Hong Kong Philatelic Society since 2008 and organizer of the first-ever East Asian Philatelic Exhibition held in August 2011.

Patrick Maselis
Patrick Maselis

Patrick Maselis is a fourth generation philatelist who has won numerous international awards for his exhibits of the Congo Free State and the 1849-1863 "medallion" issues of his native Belgium. Since 2009 he has been president of the Club de Monte-Carlo and served as general commissioner of its MonacoPhil exhibitions. He is also a fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and its vice president, as well as president of the Belgian Academy of Philately. In 2012, he was invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists. A chemist by training, he is managing director of a major Belgian cereal manufacturing plant. He lives with his wife and two children in Roeselare.

Douglas E. Mattox
Douglas E. Mattox

An internationally known expert in otology and neurotology, Dr. Douglas E. Mattox is the William Chester Warren Jr., MD Chair and Professor of the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. His medical research is in the fields of hearing and the vestibular system. As a philatelist, he collects and exhibits stamps and postal history of the Kingdom of Tonga, especially the surcharged issues of 1891-1896 and commercial tin can mail.

Daniel A. Piazza
Daniel A. Piazza

Daniel A. Piazza became the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Chief Curator of Philately in 2014. He is responsible for exhibitions, research, and acquisitions related to the museum’s six million postage stamps and postal artifacts. Piazza lectures widely and has been interviewed by numerous media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, The Today Show, and C-SPAN. He is a member of national and international philatelic societies and a frequent contributor to collector journals. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London in 2017 and named one of Linn’s Stamp News’s “Most Influential Philatelists” in 2022.

Daniel J. Ryterband
Daniel J. Ryterband

Daniel J. Ryterband is the Chairman and CEO of FW Cook & Co., which provides consulting services to corporate boards in the areas of executive compensation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University. He has numerous collecting interests including the US 1847 issue, the American Civil War, and inland waterway postal history. Dan is a member of numerous philatelic organizations and serves on the boards of both the Philatelic Foundation and the Collectors Club. He is also an environmentalist and passionate outdoorsman and serves on the boards of several environmental non-profit organizations.

Wade E. Saadi
Wade E. Saadi

Wade E. Saadi, a businessman living in New York City, has been collecting since childhood and specializes in the U.S. Classic Period. He is also a writer, researcher, and exhibitor of these issues and has won numerous awards for exhibits and research. His gold medal 1847 exhibit is considered one of the finest studies in the shades and cancellations of that issue ever formed. He is currently exhibiting “Struck on Stamps–1851 to 1868,” a study of the evolution of early cancellations. He is past president of the APS, USPCS, and CCNY. He has served as editor of the 1847 section of The Chronicle of the U.S. Classic Postal Issues since 1997. He is the chair of the World Stamp Show-NY2016 Organizing Committee and president of the NY2016 International Exhibition.

Charles Shreve
Charles Shreve

Charles Shreve is a life-long professional philatelist who has made a career of his hobby for more than four decades. In the early 1980’s Charles developed an innovative style of describing and presenting stamps in luxuriant auction catalogues, which allowed him to be counted among the premier auctioneers of high-quality U.S. and International stamps and postal history. In 1993 he founded Shreves Philatelic Galleries, and the firm quickly rose to a leading position in the international philatelic marketplace. In 2007 he sold his firm to an international auction company based in London and became an independent consultant for high end collectors. In 2012 he joined Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries as its Director of their International auctions. In his career Charles has been involved in the sale of nearly one billion dollars’ worth of rare philatelic material.

Charles maintains numerous memberships in the hobby, including being a life member of the American Philatelic Society, the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society and the American Stamp Dealers Association. In addition, Charles is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society of London. And for the past 20 years, he has been on the Council of Philatelists at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. In 2019 Charles was awarded the prestigious Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award.

Donald Sundman
Donald Sundman

Donald Sundman is president of Mystic Stamp Company and serves on the Philatelic Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He co-sponsors the National Postal Museum's Maynard Sundman Philatelic Lecture series. His Freedom of Information Act request unraveled the mystery of the legendary “CIA Invert” stamps, and he donated one to the National Philatelic Collection. To protect collectors from a controversial U.S. Postal Service decision, Mystic filed suit to prevent the destruction of the recalled 1994 Legends of the West error sheets. In 1998 Mystic purchased America’s rarest stamp, the 1868 1-cent Z Grill, for a record price of $935,000. In 2005, the 1-cent Z Grill was traded in an even exchange for the unique 1918 Jenny Invert Plate-Number Block, valued at $2.97 million. The historic exchange of America’s most famous and valuable rarities was covered by the worldwide media, captivating the imaginations of collectors around the globe.

Edmund Truell
Edmund Truell

Edmund “Edi" Truell has been running third party funds since the age of 16. He qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst while studying Economics at Durham University. He was credit trained at Bankers Trust LBO group where he structured and advised major LBOs and infrastructure projects. Edi created and ran a series of innovative entities, including Hambros European Ventures, Duke Street Capital private equity and Duchess debt funds, as well as Pension Insurance Corporation; Disruptive Capital Finance and the London Lancashire Pension Partnership / London Pensions Fund Authority (“LPFA”). In 2014 he was voted Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP’s “Entrepreneur of the Year" and is a former special economic advisor to the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson). While chairman of the LPFA, Edi was the architect of the merger for £260bn of public sector funds into seven “superpools" and is the Founder of the Pension SuperFund, the UK’s first Defined Benefits pension consolidator. Edi is Trustee and Founder of the Truell Conservation Foundation; and formerly Director of Galapagos Conservation, Charles Darwin Foundation – the first debt for nature swap. He is also the former Chair of the UK Strategic Investment Advisory Board.

Alan Whitman
Alan Whitman

Like many philatelists, Alan Whitman began collecting as a child but let the hobby drift to the back burner during his young adulthood. A subscription to Linn’s Stamp News—purchased to help his daughter’s school magazine drive—rekindled his interest in 1993. Now a serious collector of United States pre-1930 issues, he is a member of the APS, CCNY, USSS, and USPCS. A graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, he is employed by Morgan Stanley where he is Managing Director.

Council of Philatelists Emeriti

Guido Craveri
Guido Craveri

Guido Craveri initiated meaningful change to the National Postal Museum’s philatelic vision. In the mid-1990s he encouraged the creation of the Council of Philatelists and served as its first chair. His ideas led to an exhibit space for great philatelic collections and the establishment of the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Awards. His experience, expertise, and passion as a collector, mentor, dealer, auctioneer, and philanthropist have set new standards in philately. In 2006 he was honored with the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award. He is president of Investphila SA, a philatelic auction house based in Lugano, Switzerland.

Hubert N. (Jay) Hoffman III

Hubert N. (Jay) Hoffman III is the Chief Executive Officer of the Hoffman Company, a firm that oversees the acquisition, management, development, construction, and leasing of office, retail, hotel, and multi-family properties. He enlisted in the United States Army upon graduation from high school and served three years assigned to the 11th Armored Calvary (a combat unit) in Europe. He attended the University of Maryland, and he currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Arline. He is an avid stamp collector.

John M. Hotchner
John M. Hotchner

John M. Hotchner has collected postage stamps for nearly sixty years. He particularly enjoys U.S., EFOs, Christmas seals, counterfeits, worldwide covers showing delays in the mail,and about twenty other country collections. He is a philatelic society and club activist, including having served sixteen years on the APS board, including a term as president. In addition, he is a philatelic writer and editor, exhibitor, judge, researcher, expertiser, and former member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee. He is a forty-two-year veteran of the US Department of State.

David Sundman
David Sundman

Like his brothers, Donald and Rick, David Sundman grew up in the stamp and coin business, Littleton Stamp & Coin, founded by his mother Fannie and father Maynard in 1945. After college, he became the chief stamp buyer for the company. David’s personal philatelic collections today focus on the postal history of New Hampshire, but he is still interested in all aspects of U.S. and international philately. Naturally he also personally collects US and World coins, including ancients, as well as US and World paper money. For many years David was a partner in Mystic Stamp Company in Camden, New York. He’s been president of Littleton Coin Company in New Hampshire since 1986. In 2017 he formed an Employee Stock Ownership Plan and sold his Littleton shares to the plan and the company is now employee-owned. David co-sponsors the NPM Maynard Sundman Philatelic Lecture Series with his brother Donald.

May Day Taylor
May Day Taylor

May Day Taylor is a native of Washington, D.C., a stamp collector since age 10, and a Sustaining Fellow of the Smithsonian Institution. An historian by education, a business consultant by profession (establishing United Buying Service in 1967 and Consulting, Advertising and Research Services in 1984) she has moved from a worldwide stamp collector to a topical collector with interests that include new U.S. issues. For the Washington 2006 international exhibition, she arranged the Alexandria Blue Boy exhibit, which resulted from her research and subsequent writings on that famous local stamp. She has two sons and four philatelic grandchildren.