StampShow in Grand Rapids set a new bench mark for the annual APS summer convention. Ken Martin (is the magician) did another outstanding job choreographing the show. Ken's master stroke for this show was the mailing of almost 500,000 postcards to the homes within the county. This helped to generate an attendance total of 10,000. Many of the attendees (families, new collectors, and people returning to the hobby) came from this mailing. Grand Rapids proved to be a superb venue (and I once doubted the choice, now eating crow). The show hotel, the Amway Grand, was an architectural gem, representatives of the convention bureau came by on Friday and thanked each dealer for coming and gave each a bag containing bottled water and packaged cookies.

Many of you receive via email our Special Weekly Email Newsletter (formerly Special Weekly Email Update). These are normally sent out at 10 AM EST on Thursday mornings. A recent audit of our mailing and email lists showed that about 50 % of our snail mail clients are also receiving our email newsletter which is sent out approximately 36 weeks a year. The week of September 5th we sent out number 122.

The email newsletter includes: Business News, New Releases, This Week's Special (usually a stock title which is discounted for the week), Recent Titles, One-Of-A-Kind, Material (an offering of new acquisitions in the areas of essays, proofs, and postal history), and Show Schedule.

The email newsletter has proved to be an effective way to stay in touch with out clients between quarterly hardcopy newsletters. It also provides an effective channel to bring new titles to you on a timely basis. If you would like to receive our email newsletter just email us your name and email address and we will add you to the list (jim@jameslee.com). There is no charge for this service and you can opt out at anytime.

The show opens in just eight months. Have you made your hotel reservations yet? The hotels are filling up for Washington 2006. Don't wait if you want to be in close walking distance to the show. Just go to washigton-2006.org and click on hotel reservations. We'll see you at the show.

Philately has lost a giant, Don Evans. I was shocked when I listened to my voice mail messages this past Monday morning. Don's wife Alyce had left me a message on Saturday night letting me know that Don had passed anyway on Friday.

I first met Don at Sandical, in San Diego, in January of 1991. We both shared a passion for the one-cent 1861 issue and had corresponded, sharing our research, for some time. Bert Christian had served as Don's mentor and Don continued Bert's research when Bert started to decline. The fruits of his labor were published by Linn's in 1997 as: The United States One-Cent Issue of 1861. This work has become one of the few seminal single issue monographs written.

Our communication over the last several years has been limited to email and a few phone calls. Don would always first ask about my children and would want to know what they were up to. He was just such a caring guy.

Since selling his one-cent collection at StampShow in San Jose, CA in 1998 he had been hard at work on a history of his bomber group during World War II. When we last talked a few months ago he was close to finishing it. I hope Don accomplished his final mission.

I will miss you my friend.

As noted earlier this issue contains many wonder covers from the Seymour B. Stiss Collection of Postal History. In addition the cover boasts three other fabulous items (and this time I don't have a favorite). There are five new titles offered which were all published since our July issue of the newsletter. An exceptional set of 40-47P1 hybrid large die proofs is being offered on behalf of a client. An outstanding set of 145-155P1 large die proofs by the National Bank Note Company can be found on page 13. Take a look at the interesting group of photo essays on the back page.