Area stamp club celebrates 25th anniversary

Monday, July 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The Southern Nevada Stamp Club, despite lean adult membership at times and the loss of younger collectors to comic books and baseball cards, has survived a quarter century.

The club, with an active membership of about 65, will celebrate its 25th anniversary Friday with the issuance of a commemorative cached cover -- stamp talk for an envelope featuring artwork and a canceled stamp.

"We started working on this last fall," said John French, vice president of the club and a four-year member. "We wanted something to commemorate the occasion, and there are a lot of people who collect covers."

The club went so far as to advertise the U.S. Postal Service-approved covers in Linn's Weekly, a national weekly newspaper for philatelists, to stir interest in the item.

The club hopes the hundreds of closet stamp collectors in Southern Nevada also will purchase the covers. Many collectors decline to join a stamp club or even let people know they collect for fear they will become targets of theft.

As for the younger generation, a drive is on to get children interested in the hobby that once was considered kids play. However, with the advent of high-tech video games, many children no longer collect things, and those who do often prefer comic books and sports trading cards over stamps.

Longtime stamp club member Betty Mauck, in recent years, has encouraged schools to start stamp clubs. She regularly visits those facilities that have instituted such groups, bringing donated stamps and supplies to the students.

That perseverance has kept the club going.

"This (25-year anniversary) is a big accomplishment for any kind of club," said French, who specializes in collecting German stamps.

"We have gotten orders from our ad in Linn's (from across the country) and we will be at the upcoming Stamp Fair to sell the covers."

The Las Vegas Stamp Fair, a twice-yearly event, is slated for Friday through Sunday at the Palace Station. The stamp club traditionally sets up its booth just outside the door of the room where more than 30 dealers come to buy, sell and trade stamps.

The commemorative covers will sell for $1.50 apiece.

Each cover will be hand canceled at the fair by a Postal Service employee. The cache features "Southern Nevada Stamp Club" in an arch over the word "Station" (a Postal Service requirement). Under that word, in large letters is "25th" and below that in smaller letters is "Anniversary."

Also, each cover will contain at least one of four stamps issued over the years honoring Nevada. They are the 3-cent Boulder Dam stamp (Scott No. 774, issued in 1935), the 3-cent Nevada centenary (Scott No. 999, issued in 1951), the 4-cent Silver Discovery (Scott No. 1130, issued in 1959) and the 5-cent Nevada statehood (Scott No. 1248, issued in 1964).

The four issues, though no longer available at post offices, are still fairly common among collectors.

"The club, over the years, has stockpiled a lot of these stamps, which are so common that sheets of them still sell for face value," French said, noting that other non-Nevada stamps will be affixed to equal the 32-cent letter rate.

The club also is selling for $10 apiece T-shirts featuring the 25th anniversary stamp club logo.

Orders for the covers also can be placed by sending checks or money orders to Charleston Stamps at 5708 W. Charleston Blvd., Las Vegas NV 89102.

Orders for one cover must be accompanied by a No. 10-sized envelope with proper postage affixed. Orders for more than one cover must be accompanied by the appropriate-size envelope with proper postage affixed.