JAPOS Articles of Distinction
Featured on the American Philatelic Society Website
The APS established the Articles of Distinction for Chapters and Affiliates to honor their authors by hosting an annual "best article" competition and submitting the winning article for all to enjoy. We are an affiliate of the APS, and as such, are eligible to select our favorite article each year and submit it for posting on their website. In 2026, the APS set aside that page during a website overhaul. We can still offer our Best Articles here as PDF files.
JAPOS began voting on favorite articles in 2020. Here are the five latest we have honored with the "Distinction" title, in chronological order.
"The Dumas Family on Stamps of Haiti" by James E. Byrne. Published Spring 2021.
"Readers today are unlikely to connect the writers Alexandre Dumas père (1802-1870) and Alexandre Dumas fil (1824-1895) with Haiti, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic era."
"James Baldwin: Writing from Life, Searching for Self" by Cynthia Scott. Published Autumn 2022.
"African American author and intellectual James Baldwin wrote prize-winning essays, short stories, and best-selling novels expressing how strongly he felt about social issues, especially the oppression of African Americans."
"Robert Louis Stevenson: Poet, Parts 1 and 2" by William Hennessy. Published Autumn 2023.
"Stevenson is less well known as a poet. But he did publish a book of poems for children, A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), that is considered a classic. ...The collection consists of 64 short poems written in the voice of a child. "
"The Milieu of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency"
by Jeff Dugdale. Posthumously published Winter 2024.
"Alexander McCall Smith published seventeen titles [in the No 1 Ladies' Detectives Agency series]. These charming and gently amusing books follow the life and investigations of the proprietor of the Agency, Mma Precious Ramotswe...a Botswana lady."
"Nero Wolfe, Fictional Detective"
by Clete Delvaux. Published Spring 2025.
"The strange thing about Nero Wolfe is that he solved crimes and mysteries while never leaving his New York Brownstone apartment. The sleuthing and on-the-ground investigations ere left to Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's Watson-like" secretary," who also narrates the Wolfe mysteries."