Wyoming Valley Stamp Club, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

The Wyoming Valley Stamp Club was formed in 2016. The club currently has 25 knowledgeable and enthusiastic members. The meetings are lively, with a lot of stamp-related discussion and activities. The club is a chapter of the American Philatelic Society, with Tom Bowman as APS Ambassador.

Club meetings are held twice a month:

• The first Monday of the month at 7:00 p.m. at the historic Samantha Mill House, 495 East Main Street (corner of East Main and Kosciuszko Streets), Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. Parking is in the Mill Memorial Library parking lot, the entrance of which is across Kosciuszko Street from CVS Pharmacy.

• The third Saturday of the month at 1:00 p.m. at the Hoyt Library, 284 Wyoming Ave., Kingston, Pennsylvania. Meetings here are not held in June, July, and August because of the library's summer hours.

(This schedule is subject to change due to holidays and other considerations. All meetings are announced in advance by emails to members and on our Facebook page.)

A typical meeting will begin with a short, informal business session, followed by activities and discussions. Members talk about stamps, trade stamps, and share with other members parts of their collection. At just about every meeting, we have an APS Chapter Circuit (see below), and we have a program of some sort.

Through the efforts of Dave Stola, Vice President and Programming Chairman, we’ve had members present programs on precanceled stamps, local postal history, horror topicals, and Belgian forgeries. We’ve had slide shows or short films on fancy cancelations, the history of railroad post offices, the history of airmail, and Confederate States covers. We have Nickel Box Nights and stamp sales. There are more programs in the works.

APS circuit books are sales books of stamps that members of the APS put together that are sent to other members. We receive a box of these books every month for the club members to peruse at the meetings that month. When we receive a new box, an email is sent to club members listing the categories of sales books in that month’s batch.

Club Amenities

• Monthly newsletter by email.

• Facebook page, with information about club activities, pictures from past activities, and postings on philatelic subjects. There is a pinned post at the top of the page with information on the next two meetings.

• Club library, with books, stamp catalogs, and magazines donated by various members. The library includes a long run of back issues of American Philatelist. Any member can borrow these books and magazines to take home.

• Display case at the Hoyt Library, with displays changing monthly. All members are encouraged to contribute ideas and items for the display.

• Directory of members, including their collecting interests and other philatelic societies of which they are members.

• Field trips. So far, we’ve had two field trips to the World Stamp Show—NY 2016, one to the grand opening of the new American Philatelic Research Library in Bellefonte, and one to SCOPEX 2017 in Bellefonte. Other field trips are under discussion, such as to the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., regional stamp shows, and the American Philatelic Society headquarters in Bellefonte. We will have a field trip to SCOPEX 2018 on June 23.

• Educational programs presented to kids, senior citizens, and others interested in stamp collecting. Also, we hosted an APS On-the-Road course last year and hope to host more.

• Club project assembling a postal history of Luzerne County.

• Club project producing a cacheted envelope for the 240th anniversary of the Battle of Wyoming in 2018.