Schwartz wins Champion of Champions award

Mark S. Schwartz’s exhibit “Boston Postal History to 1851” won the Champion of Champions award at the annual American Philatelic Society Stampshow, Aug. 20-23, in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The award was presented Aug. 22 at the Stampshow awards banquet by David McNamee, chairman of the APS Accreditation of National Exhibitions and Judges committee.

Schwartz’s exhibit was one of the 31 grand-award winners of APS-certified national exhibitions held from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, that competed for the honor to be named Champion of Champions of the World Series of Philately.

His exhibit won the gold medal at the Sarasota National Stamp Exhibition Feb. 6-8 in Sarasota, Fla.

In this exhibit, Schwartz used different types of letters handled by the Boston post office and a variety of postal markings to “illustrate the evolution of rates and services of the American postal system from the very early Colonial period through the rate simplification of 1851 shown through the window of the Boston post office.”