About Us

APS Affiliate No. 205 -- ATA Study Unit No. 458

The Gay & Lesbian History on Stamps Club (GLHSC) was founded in New York City in the spring of 1982. The founders were Paul Hennefeld, Blair O’Dell, Brian Lanter, and Lambda Stamps. On a Sunday afternoon, they met at the Greenwich Village restaurant, One Potato (now a Starbucks Coffee at 518 Hudson Street). There, plans were drawn up for the formation of the Club, and steps needed to gain American Topical Association (ATA) Study Unit status.

The founders received word in July of 1983 that their application for study unit status was rejected by the ATA Board of Directors. No reason was given for the rejection. For the next two years, GLHSC and ATA sent letters back and forth to try to come to an agreement on study unit status. The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund was contacted to help. Study Unit status was finally granted by the ATA Board of Directors on June 20, 1985.

Nearly ten years later, GLHSC applied for Affiliate status with the American Philatelic Society (APS). This time, there was no lengthy letter writing campaign, and GLHSC was granted APS Affiliate No. 205 on August 28, 1991.

The first issue of the Lambda Philatelic Journal, the quarterly official publication of the Club, appeared in the summer of 1982. In 1996, the initial membership directory was published. In addition, the group scheduled meetings at national stamp shows. Publication of the journal continued until the December 2011 issue, when the editor at the time retired with no successor. By 2013, the group had ceased operations.

Thanks to the generosity of an individual who prefers to remain anonymous, the Club’s presence on the World Wide Web was restored from 2014-2018 with a new home, GLHSonline, which continues in use today.

The group was revived in the summer of 2018 and a new quarterly publication, the Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps Journal was inaugurated. The first scheduled meeting occured at the APS Ameristamp Expo, held in Phoenix, Arizona, in February 2019, followed by a meeting at the APS StampShow/National Topical Stamp Show (now known as the Great American Stamp Show) in Omaha, Nebraska in August. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the physical meeting scheduled for the summer of 2020 at the Great American Stamp Show was changed to a virtual meeting. Since then, virtual meetings have been held on a quarterly basis with special speakers, except for the quarter in which an in-person gathering is held at a stamp show.

Thanks and admiration go out to all those individuals who made this organization function in the past. Now it’s time for a new chapter in our history. Your support through a membership, contributions to our journal and attendance at meetings will help ensure this organization thrives well into the future.