Who is Trish Kaufmann?
TRISH KAUFMANN began collecting Confederate postal history
in her late teens and quickly became engrossed in exhibiting, writing
and research on the subject. She served as editor of The
Confederate Philatelist, official publication of the Confederate
Stamp Alliance, from 1973-1987 and co-editor prior to that from
1970-73, a total of 17 1/2 years.
CSA President Jim Monroe appointed Kaufmann Editor-in-Chief
of the major catalog project in
late October 2006 after announcing the acquisition of the rights
to The New Dietz Confederate States Catalog and Handbook,
last published in 1986. The new 2012 volume is
titled the Confederate States of America Catalog and Handbook of Stamps and Postal History (CSA Catalog for short). In
1931, August Dietz published the first catalog that bore his
name. Subsequent editions were issued in 1937, 1945, 1959 and 1986. The 21st century edition of the CSA Catalog is much demand by collectors, serious students and
dealers. It takes advantage of all of the marvelous
changes in technology that have occurred in the past two decades,
including color. Publication was in November 2012 to coincide with the multi-year 150th anniversary of the Civil War. A website explaining the catalog project may be found
at www.csacatalog.org
Trish is Past President of the Confederate Stamp Alliance, serving almost three years from January 2008 - September 2010, the first woman to ever hold that position.
She was also the first woman and the youngest person ever bestowed
the permanent honorary title of "General" in the Confederate
Stamp Alliance (1985) and has won the CSA Haydn Myer Award a record three times
for service to the Alliance as well as twice winning the August Dietz Award for research and writing. She has been a continuous member of the CSA
Authentication Service since 1996 and served as the Recording
Secretary from July 1996 through November 2007 - currently holding the longest tenure within that committee. She has won numerous
exhibitor awards including Grand and Reserve Grand Awards
in national philatelic competition with both her Confederate
and Classic Valentine collections.
The Board of Regents of the Smithsonian, headed by Vice President Joe Biden, approved her election to the Council of Philatelists of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in January 2011. Congress vested responsibility for the administration of the Smithsonian to a Board of Regents, consisting of the Chief Justice of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, three members of the United States Senate, three members of the United States House of Representatives, and nine citizens. She serves on the Research Committee and Public Relations / Web Committee of said institution. Trish served
as a researcher for their extensive cataloging project, "Arago",
which was unveiled May 27, 2006. This is an exciting time at the NPM with the creation of the new William H. Gross Gallery, which will greatly expand public access to the national postal collection. The Gross Gallery is due to open September 22, 2013. Trish is delighted to be able to serve during this exciting time of expansion.
Trish was a section editor of The Confederate Stampless Cover
Catalog as well as a contributor to the 1986 New Dietz
Confederate States Catalogue and annual updates of the Scott
Specialized Catalogue. She has written innumerable philatelic
research articles, primarily on Confederates and U.S. antique
valentines and postal history for The American Philatelist,
The Congress Book, Smithsonian Magazine, Way Markings, The Confederate
Philatelist, La Posta and many other publications. Off and on,
she has also written a column entitled "Eye on the Market"
for The Confederate Philatelist on the status of Confederate
material in the philatelic marketplace. Since January
2007, Trish has written a monthly column entitled "The
Confederate Post" for The American Stamp Dealer and
Collector and seves as an Associate Editor. These are partially being archived
on this website on the articles page. Trish was surprised by a special feature on her by the editor, Randy Neil, in his column First Word in April 2008. She also writes a column for The Confederate Philatelist entitled "Confederate Collectanea" and is a regular columnist for La Posta.
Society
affiliations include life memberships in the American Philatelic
Society, Confederate Stamp Alliance, U.S. Philatelic Classics
Society, and the American Philatelic Research Library, of which
she is also a patron; she is also a member of the American Stamp
Dealers Association, the Royal Philatelic Society of London, Collectors Club of New York and numerous other collector and dealer organizations. She served on the
board of directors of the American Philatelic Research Library
(the first female member), the Society of Philatelic Americans,
the Virginia Postal History Society, NAPEX, and the World Stamp
Expo Advisory Board to the U.S. Postal Service.
She
was on the CSA Postmaster Provisional Revision Committee working
with the publishers of the Scott Catalogue to revise
this important section of Scott, as well as serving in
a similar capacity revising the Confederate section of the Minkus
Catalogue. She works regularly with the Scott Catalogue
editors to maintain the Confederate sections of Volume I and
the Scott Specialized Catalogue.
It
was Trish's definitive research on the 3-cent 1861 Postmaster
Provisionals, published jointly in both the 1984 and 2000
American Philatelist and The Confederate Philatelist,
that resulted in an entirely new section in the 2000 Scott
Specialized Catalogue. This section in the Scott Catalogue
immediately precedes the Confederate States section. Her research
was a 16-year project, which ultimately disproved the misconceptions
of over a century of prior catalog listings - both U.S. and
Confederate. Her second article, dedicated solely to the Madison
C.H., Florida 3-cent postmaster provisionals, is reproduced
with full color illustrations on this Web site. She has given numerous presentations on the Madison project over the years.
In 1973, she was hired by John Kaufmann as his first employee and,
together with him, formed the Washington, D.C. philatelic auction
house of John W. Kaufmann, Inc. of which she served as Vice-president
until John's death in 1988 when she took over as President.
John and Trish were married in 1975. Trish was one of the first
female auctioneers in the country and
basically served as office manager as well as auction describer.
She closed the business in 1989 when she began working as a
consultant for Stephen J. Osborne, a dealer in the United Kingdom.
As of September 2000, Osborne permanently moved his business
back to England and
they now independently pursue their philatelic careers.
With
more than 40 years of philatelic experience, Trish works as a professional philatelist and offers one of, if not the, premier Confederate retail stocks in the country.. Her collecting,
exhibiting, research and writing experience speaks for itself.
She was qualified as a philatelic expert witness in 2003 and
is available for court testimony in the fields of U.S. and Confederate
States stamps and postal history, as well as appraisals. She
will also be happy to handle your auction bids for major Confederate
auctions. Trish takes her retail stock on the road several times a year and can be found with a bourse table at the two yearly Confederate Stamp Alliance conventions and, the American Philatelic Society annual convention which moves around the country, as well as at her old stomping grounds at NAPEX in the Washington, D.C. area every June and Sarasota, Florida in February. Occasionally she'll stray to other places and can also be seen on the floor buying at various other national shows.
On
a personal level, Trish was happily remarried in 1992 to Capt.
Darryl Boyer and together they ran a wreck diving charter boat,
Surface Interval,
from 1991 through 2005. The sale of their boat in January 2006
gave Trish the opportunity to expand her philatelic sales department.
Darryl and Trish met while diving off the Mid-Atlantic coast
of Virginia in 1990 while she was training to become a SCUBA
instructor and he was looking for a dive boat to buy. Although
no longer an active Rotarian, she was the first woman elected
to the Princess Anne, Maryland Rotary Club in 1990. Trish is
also very involved in her calling to Reformation
Lutheran Church in Milford, Delaware where, among many other
things, she created and maintains the sizeable church Web site.
