Charles Haviland Mekeel (December 1, 1861 – October 13, 1921), of

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, was a well-known

stamp dealer A stamp dealer is a company or an individual who deals in stamps and philatelic products. It also includes individuals who sell postage stamps for day to day use or revenue stamps for use on court documents. Stamp dealers who sell to stamp collect ...

and editor. He figured prominently in the 1895 “find” of the St. Louis Postmaster Provisionals, which solved problems related to their authenticity.

Philatelic literature

Besides his trade as a

, Mekeel edited numerous philatelic journals, including ''The Stamp Collectors' Bureau'' (1891); ''Philatelic Journal of America'' (1885), which eventually changed its name to ''Mekeel's Stamp Collector''; ''Mekeel's Drummer'' (1900 to 1901); ''Mekeel's News and Trade Journal'' (1905–1912); and a daily stamp journal which was published for less than a year in 1896, ''The Daily Stamp News''. Mekeel's ''Weekly Stamp News'' is the publication he is most remembered for. He started publishing the weekly in January 1891, and continued editing and publishing it until 1897, when he sold it to his brother Isaac, who continued publishing the journal until the 1940s. (It is now known as ''Mekeel's & Stamps Magazine'', published by John Dunn, and edited by John Leszak"Stamp News increases web publishing" ''The Philatelic Communicator: Journal of the American Philatelic Society Writers Unit #30,'' 4th quarter 2011, p.

/ref> )

Collecting interests

Mekeel collected postage stamps of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and wrote ''The Mexican Postal Stamp Catalog'' in 1890 and ''The Postage Stamps of Mexico'' in 1911. From 1892 to 1895, he published in St. Louis a philatelic journal in Spanish, entitled ''La Revista Filatelica''.

St. Louis Bears

United States postmasters provisional St Louis 1845-46 10 cent postage stamp

Mekeel was involved in the study and authentication of the 1895 discovery of St. Louis Postmaster Provisionals, which verified the plating of the provisionals and the authenticity of the 20 cent value. Based on his study of the provisionals, Mekeel wrote ''The History of the Postage Stamps of the St. Louis Postmaster, 1845-1847'' in 1895.

Honors and awards

Mekeel was admitted to the

American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame The American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame award honors deceased philatelists who have contributed significantly to the field of national and/or international philately. History The APS ''Hall of Fame'' award was founded at the 1940 American P ...

in 1972.

References

External links