Help With Collector ID Rev. Kieran Martin

In sifting through my Dad's collection of covers I came across a 1964 Vatican cover with the following ID on the back. Would anyone know who this is and whether he was a well-known collector? Thanks

Kafka, I have never heard of Rev. Martin as a collector, but he was apparently a member of both the Society of Philatelic Americans (SPA) and the American Topical Association (ATA). The Msgr. Kieran J. Martin (ordained 1950) listed here among the priests of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Brooklyn may be the same man: http://stthomasaquinasbrooklyn.com/...omas-aquinas

Belonging to the Society of Philatelic Americans is not really something I would have wanted to advertise, especially for a reverend.

revcollector,





I am not sure if I have heard of that group, so would you care to elucidate?

regards, Theron

Some of the background of the Society of Philatelic Americans (SPA) is summarized in this previous thread:

https://goscf.com/t/7365&whichpage=...%20Americans

Here's a link to the obituary for the late Rev. Msgr. Kieran Martin (1923-2004):

http://www.rockawave.com/news/2004-11-05/obits

The SPA was originally formed by people from the APS who did not like that the APS was starting to allow women and minorities into the group. So they left. As it happens most of them were from the south. Even in the 60's when I first heard about them they were not held in very high esteem based on what I was hearing at shows, etc.

SPA was limping along on life support for a long time until it died quietly in the early 1980's. You can still acquire partial runs of the SPA Journal at auction occasionally.

That's a little disturbing to me that one would leave an organization because women were joining, but of course I was born right before the whole "bra-burning" stuffs surrounding the Nixon admin in the early 70's....oops! I guess I'm showing my age here huh! I'll say one thing about that though, I really don't miss the macrame owls and lava lamps that much...ha-ha!

edit:

That is great research on this fellow and cover. It should also maybe be mentioned that private handstamps were not uncommon for collectors in that time. I have even seen (actually own a few someplace?) them on the backs of stamps! yikes! Sometimes just an initial or as elaborate as a small design notating from which collection that particular stamp was from...what were they thinking??

I asked a similar question about an owner's mark on the back of one of my stamps in this thread amd Bill Weiss replied..

https://goscf.com/t/40224