Robson Lowe: Robson Lowe was an inspirational auctioneer, student of philately and really the father of the scientific study of postal history. I began receiving his auction catalogs in 1963 and acquired his British Empire book as available. My favorite Robson Lowe quote regarding the value of some obscure Afghan War covers: "these appear on the market infrequently and sometimes at low prices, but not from me."

Edwin Mueller: In 1965, I was introduced to Mueller's "Mercury Stamp Journal" (published 1950 to 1961, see excerpts here). His superb scholarship and the clarity of his writing sparked my imagination and opened my mind to the enormous potential of classic philately.

George Sloane: I did not begin to fully appreciate George Sloane until I acquired his reference collection of United States Carriers and Locals in 1990 when I handled the Ambassador J. William Middendorf, II collection of the area. At that date there was little accurate information easily available on the subject. Later, I was able to purchase his Confederate States reference collection. He was a careful scholar and author.
 

Carl Boyles: Mr. Boyles was my earliest philatelic mentor when I was growing up in Columbus, Ohio in the early 1960s. I met him when he was in charge of the Stamp & Coin department of Lazarus Department Store. In 1962 he was the person who certified my Boy Scout's stamp collecting merit badge which completed the requirements for me to become an Eagle Scout.

Carl Sachs: Carl was the first old-fashioned stamp dealer I dealt with in Columbus. He lived with his wife just a couple blocks away from Lazarus and I visited their apartment almost weekly for several years between 1962 and 1967. He had a large inventory of classic stamps, neatly mounted and priced in approval books as well as stacks of covers. The conversation, cookies and the stamps were always worth the visit.

Alex Juliard: Alex Juliard was my first "mail-order" dealer. His "Juliard Classics" catalog was eagerly anticipated and much of the salary from my weekend job at the Ohio State University Hospital laboratory went to his Bryn Mawr, PA address.

William Lea (Lea of the Strand): I first met Bill Lea, Sr. at the 1966 SIPEX show where I exhibited Bosnia. He took time away from his stand at the show to go over my exhibit with me. On the title page I had a lone "precursor" stamp, a Turkey stamp used from Sarajevo. After explaining that I should look for covers of Turkey used in Bosnia, he introduced me to William Waste and walked me through Mr. Waste's superb exhibit of the postal history of Turkey used in Bosnia. That was the day that I was first infused with postal history.

Bernard Harmer: The first stamp auction I attended was an HR Harmer sale in New York City circa. 1965. I flew from Ohio to New York just to attend the sale to bid on a 1680's "Dockwra" penny post cover. It proved to be a very theatrical and exhilarating experience. After my successful bid on the cover (under $100), Bernard stopped the sale to thank me. I quickly exited the arena to pay for my purchase and catch a flight back home as the audience applauded.

Earl P.L. Apfelbaum: In 1968 Earl hired me as a describer at the age of 20 when he was near the end of his active involvement with his auction company. I took my leave when Earl turned over daily management of the firm to his son, Martin.

Insert a Hiatus: The astute reader will note a time warp before the jump to 1973 for the next entry. I was back to working in hospital clinical labs while also taking pre-Med and graduate level courses in ancient history at University of Pennsylvania and then Temple University. A paper I wrote in 1972 on the success of the "stat" laboratory that I supervised was published in Philadelphia Medicine (here). I performed the mass spectrometry and blood gas measurements for an article I co-authored that was published in Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics in October, 1972 entitled On Line, In-Vivo Measurement of Tissue and Blood Gases in Patients with Severe Trauma (article is here). And, to give more rounded view of my interests at the time, which still included philately, I assisted my professor at Temple, Walter Moeller, with his book, The Mithraic Origin and Meanings of the ROTAS-SATOR Square, published in 1973 - title and acknowledgement pages for my numerological contributions is here. I will spare the linking of my paper on Kingship Renewal in the Ancient Near East, etc, etc ...
 

Roger Koerber: At the BALPEX stamp show in September 1973 I was offered a job as a describer by Roger. My new salary was to be a fraction of what I was making as the supervisor of a clinical laboratory at Hahnemann Hospital. Still, it was the best decision of my young life to abandon medicine (a family favorite occupation that included my sister, Dr. Barbara Atkinson the funding Dean of the UNLV School of Medicine). During my short stay in Michigan I had the pleasure of working with both Charles Shreve and Alan Cohen. In 1980, Roger published my book on the postage stamps of Siam to 1940 (pdf file here).

Bill Bilden: I am fortunate to have met Bill when he attended a sale at Koerber's to purchase the largest known used multiple of a United States 1856 issue five cent stamp, the famous irregular block of eleven on wrapper. He later would help me purchase two of Lester Brookman's personal collections, introduce me to Floyd Risvold, and much later sell me his personal collection of US Post Office in China and Japan. Bill was one of the most knowledgeable postal history dealers I have had the pleasure of knowing. 

Simmy Jacobs: Simmy convinced me to move from Michigan to Boston in 1974 to be a buyer from his stamp auction company. Thankfully my soon to be wife, Francine, was able to find a suitable nursing job at Massachusetts General Hospital. At the time Simmy's main business was the buying and selling of United States "jumbo" stamps. It was not a good match and I soon tired of traveling to stamp shows every weekend to buy material. However, I loved living in the Beacon Hill area of Boston during the Bicentennial. Fran and I lived a block up the hill from "The Bull & Finch Pub" which would later become famous as "Cheers" on the TV show of the same name.

Jack Molesworth: I worked with Jack from 1976 to 1978. He made a good living buying auction level US and CSA material as fine and selling as very fine. He was 100% reliable, predictable and consistent once you took the time to understand his terminology. My favorite memory of Jack was his attempt to explain to a potential buyer that a stamp Jack had described as "F-VF" meant that the stamp was centered fine in one direction and VF in the other direction. Brilliant!

Stanley Richmond: Stanley was a fixture in Boston during the time I lived there. When I went to Danbury, CT to work as a consultant to Sotheby's, Stanley bankrolled several independent partnership purchases such as the Gloeckner Siam in 1978 for $600,000. My share of the profits on that purchase, plus several smaller purchases, allowed me to finance the purchase of material that was included in my first auction in 1981. Later, he was my partner in the purchase of the famous Crittenden Virginia City Pony Express correspondence. Later still, 1996 to 1998, I worked with Stanley and his son Larry with American Historical Auctions. I am happy to still count Stanley as a close friend and have long considered him to be the most knowledgeable philatelic dealer alive.

Olivier Stocker: I did not meet Olivier Stocker until I was asked to assist Steve Walske in the dispersal of his fantastic collection of the classic errors of France. Olivier, as a member of the Spink Board at that time, helped organize, assemble and execute a landmark public auction in Paris in late 2003. The sale, of only 129 lots, brought a total of 5,708,662 euros. Olivier was to help me again when I served as agent for the estate of Floyd Risvold. He co-ordinatied, along with Spink-Shreve and Spink-Smythe, the sale of the Floyd Risvold collection at public auction. The 2010 auction, with the auction house pre-sale high estimate of $2.5m, sold for just over $7m hammer price. I was happy to purchase over $1.4m of material at the sale on behalf of other clients.
 

Doug Kelsey: Doug and I were members of the same Boy Scout troop in Upper Arlington (a few years after the famous "Golden Bear" alum, Jack Nicklaus had graduated). Both of us shared an interest in stamp collecting and I bought my first Bosnia stamp from him. That stamp, a used 10kr 1914 issue, served as the foundation of my first exhibit that was shown in the "junior" class at the 1966 SIPEX stamp show held in Washington, DC.

Dr. Stanford Bazilian: I met Stan while working in Philadelphia in the late 1960s. He was a psychiatrist by profession and a avid collector of imperforate classic stamps of the world. He paid me to plate Great Britain penny blacks and I shared his enthusiasm for the imperforates of the world. Much later, I was entrusted to sell his fine collection New Brunswick imperforates to Stanley Gibbons, New York. The was all a full bowl of cherries at Stan's home to welcome guests.

Dr. Ernst Theimer: Starting in the late 1970s I helped source material for Ernst's wonderful exhibits of classic Austria and Lombardy Venetia. A brilliant man who helped me establish long-lasting contacts with many of the best European dealers of the era.

Marc Haas: Marc Haas was probably the most under-estimated collector I have known. He was a passionate collector who had a connoisseur's eye in every field of that interested him. I first met Marc at an "Interpostal" show in New York City in 1978 or 1979. He purchased many of the highest quality classic US covers I could find for him for many years until he started to sell in the mid 1980s. I was privileged to be able to sell major holdings of Marc's California and Confederate States postal history at public auction as single owner sales. In addition, I sold significant amounts of material for him by private treaty and as unattributed lots at auction.

George Fisher: I met George Fisher in 1981 when he and his wife Eleanor drove up from Philadelphia to attend my first auction. Later that same year he was instrumental in my purchase of the Wylie Flack collection of Philadelphia. Many years later he became interested in the US Post Office on Shanghai and I helped him form a fine collection. I purchased the collection in 1998 and my extensively annotated net price sale (here) enabled me to expand my client base to include the man who formed the "Magnolia" collection.

Henry Conland: Harry held "most favored client" status from when I first met him in 1981 when he attend my first auction until his passing in 2019. Collecting was in his blood as was the case with his father and grandfather before him. He had a connoisseur's eye for quality and rarity and built outstanding collections of Newfoundland (I arranged for this collection to be sold in a 2001 Harmer auction sale), Hartford Letter Mail (I sold intact in 2015 here), US revenue stamps including wine stamps which I mounted and sold for him in 2016 (here), US stampless covers (sold intact in 2017, here), and the family stamp collection (mounted and sold intact in 2018 here). Harry warmed my heart when at the 2011 Taos Philatelic Rendezvous, during the introductions when each participant stood up and gave their name and collecting interest, Harry stood up, announced his name and simply stated, "I buy whatever Richard tells me to buy."

Floyd Risvold: I first met Floyd in 1975 while on a buying trip to visit Bill Bilden in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was struck immediately by his love of American history, particularly of the American West. I became a buying agent and scout for Floyd not much after that when the owner of the major New York City auction house failed to enter his bid on an auction lot. Floyd felt that the auctioneer was devoting too much time to the "investment" clients at the expensive of the "real" collectors. In 2000 I was able, with two partners, to sell Floyd's 16 page Abraham Lincoln letter to Bill Gates. A few years later I sold his collection of Trans-Pacific material intact to the "Magnola" client. I worked closely with Floyd right up to the time of his passing in 2009. In fact, his last purchase, just a week before his death, was a 1792 letter from Spanish Colonial New Orleans that had been on his "most wanted" list since I first met him. I was appointed by his estate to handle the dispersal of his remaining collections bringing the total value to his holdings to over $10 million. My memorial to Floyd Risvold is here.

Oscar Salzer: I was very fortunate to have met Oscar Salzer on one of my first trips to California in the early 1980s. He was simply one of the the most generous and compassionate collectors I have every known. He appreciated beauty in postal history as well as in old master paintings and drawings. He cared less about ownership than he did about sharing his love of philately. As a single example, when Oscar came to visit my booth at 1986 Ameripex in Chicago, he selected for purchase a group of Magnus patriotic covers that I had recently added to inventory from the Paliafito collection. As Oscar's primary interest for himself was stampless letters, I was curious about the selection. They were all US Navy related covers that he was buying to gift to a close friend. When I later sold the Tom Alexander collection, I realized that several covers, including the most valuable cover in the collection, a United States plus Papal States combination cover that sold for $29,000, had been gifted by Oscar.

In early February 1987, I received an urgent call from Oscar asking me to come visit him in Los Angeles as soon as I could make it as he had a favor to ask of me. I met with him on a Friday and he gave me a few small bundles of covers, each wrapped in aluminum foil, and asked me to distribute them to his friends as per his directions. Within hours of my arrival home I received a call that Oscar had passed away. Philately can never replace an Oscar Salzer. It really is the rare person like Oscar that has made my philatelic life worthwhile.

Dr. Carl Walske: I think I first met Carl when he came to one of my early auctions in Danbury. He "schooled" me in learning how to better appreciate philatelic forgeries and forgers, rather than just curse them. When I sold Pat Herst's rather skimpy collection of Paris balloon post  in 1987 for far more than my estimate, Carl and his son, Steve, attended the sale. After the auction, I received a scribbled post card thank you from Pat, but began a long-lasting friendship with both Carl and Steve.

I had long admired Carl's extensive, meticulous and thorough work on the "reproductions" of Jean De Sperati as well as his research on the person. As a result, I feel honored to have been able to purchase his Sperati collection in 2019. I hope my website based on his work (here) will serve as a small tribute to Carl. A short biography of Carl is here.

Frederick Mayer: I had the great privilege of being able to work with Mr. Mayer for a number of years prior to his passing in 2007. I helped acquire material, prepare exhibits and eventually write two books with Mr. Mayer. The first book was on the United States five cent stamp of 1856 and the second, published posthumously in 2008, was on the postal history of Costa Rica to 1883. Mr. Mayer was a true renaissance man who had vast knowledge in many areas, he was able to communicate his ideas, thoughts and visions concisely and with ease. His passion for collecting was contagious. It didn't matter if he was relating a recent find, plucked from a stockbook of inexpensive stamps, or a philatelic treasure, he enjoyed the hunt as well as the discussion equally. My memorial to Frederick Mayer is here
 

Richard Frajola (March 2022)