International Postal History Fellowship

                                                              Origin and history of the International Postal History Fellowship.

The fundamentals of IPHF go back to 1958.  From 1958 up to 1978, there were individual speeches and meetings for postal history in Belgium.

The beginning of the international group was a letter, dated 7 December 1978, that James Van der Linden sent to 6 well known postal historians in Belgium and Holland, inviting them for a meeting in January 1979 in Gent. The meeting place was removed to Breda in the Netherlands where 2 meetings took place, in January 1979 and November 1980.

Purpose of the letter: “a reunion to study and discuss postal history problems with support of own covers, postal conventions, notes etc…

It was pointed out very clearly, that this was not a new society, but a social reunion where results had to be noted. First theme was the study of the entry marking “HOLLANDE”.

The setting of the program was as follows: one person is designated as ‘talk leader’ or host. He had to give a short survey of the theme.  Each member commented his view on the theme with examples.  Follows than a discussion and conclusion which is noted and send to the participants, who can use these without restriction. The expenses are divided over the group. 

The name of this group was initially ‘De Haan-Herlant’ as these persons were erudite scholars of postal history of both nations. It was renamed afterwards as ‘Groupe d’Etude d’Histoire Postale’ (Postal History Study Group).  After Breda there were three more meetings in Mulhouse (F) 1988, Solothurn (CH) 1989 and London 1990.

In 1994, it was decided to limit the group to 10 persons, but that each person could invite a friend to the meetings (to obtain a limit of maximum 20 persons).  After 3 more meetings in St Niklaas (B) and Sindelfingen (D) 1992-1993, a first intercontinental meeting was organized in Washington DC on 18.9.1994, by Richard Winter and Jeffrey Bohn with the support of James Van der Linden, which turned out to be a big success.

In this meeting, and for the first time, participants made ‘hand-outs’ of their presentations. These were distributed, opinions and texts therein were free to use. 

Here in Washington 1994, the fundamentals of “who and what” where accepted.  Decided was that only 10 members would be accepted.   

The first nine members of IPHF were:

BOHN, Jeff(rey) USA – Columbia

DE CLERCQ, Leo B – St. Niklaas

GOATCHER, Fred GB – Etchingham

HADER, Hermann A – Guntramsdorf

MUYS, Cornelis NL – ‘s Gravenhage

SIEBER, Hansulrich CH – Fraubrunnen

VAN DER LINDEN, James B – Baelen sur Vesdre

VOLLMEIER, Paolo CH – Castagnola

WINTER, Richard (Dick) USA – Greensboro

The group of ten called themselves now I.P.H.F: International Postal History Fellows, with an logo for the group ‘IPHF in a posthorn’, and an address logo in two circles for the members. Each member had the right to invited 2 non-members.  The acceptance of a guest was by unanimous decision of all ten members.  All of them had to give a presentation and hand-out with some new postal historical research. It was free to members and guest to choose there topic.  This changed in 2001 (IPHF -Greensboro) where a central topic was introduced (Transit and entry markings).

There were also some important “open” or public meetings: 1997 San Francisco, at Pacific 97; 1998, Luxemburg, at Juvalux 98; 2001 at Brussels, Belgica 01, 2016 at New York, NY2016 and Monaco 2019.

In 1999, Mr. Bruns was accept as the 10th member, the maximum number allowed.  In 2010, for the first time, the IPHF guidelines written by Dick Winter, were accepted.  From now on each invited guest agreed to give a presentation and hand-out.

Up to 2025 IPHF has had 21 members and 97 different guests.  Of those 97 guests, 12 made it to the member status.  In these 25 years, a total of 468 presentations were given.  Finally the IPHF-logo.  This was a creation of James Van der Linden.