Annually, the American Philatelic Society (APS) presents The Luff Award for Meritorious Contributions to Philately by Living Philatelists. The Award was established in 1940 in memory of John N. Luff, APS president from 1907 to 1909, who was considered the most prominent American philatelist of his era.
The APS Luff Award is available annually for:
> Distinguished Philatelic Research
> Exceptional Contributions to Philately
> Outstanding Service to the American Philatelic Society.
Recipients sign the Luff Award Scroll and are presented with engraved rings and individually prepared mementos.
And now, about the winner!
When he was eight years old, Mark Schwartz got a Stamp album from his parents, starting a life-long love of the hobby. After college and grad school, he began collecting the postal history of Boston and its North Shore, which should not be surprising since that was where he was born and raised. Mark went to a few shows close to his home in Philadelphia, and built his collections primarily from auctions and dealers at those shows. But it was not until he retired after a 37-year career in the pharmaceutical industry in 2007, that he became thoroughly immersed in organized philately.
He first exhibited a single frame called “The Ship Letters of Essex County, Mass.” at the Philatelic Show outside of Boston in 2008, and evidently found it very satisfying and enjoyable. Since then, Mark has shown 23 different exhibits nearly all of which have reached Gold, and 12 which have achieved Grand awards. He won the multi-frame Champion of Champions at Grand Rapids in 2015 with his “Boston Postal History”, and three single frame C of Cs with “The Trade Routes of Salem, Mass.”, “The Retaliatory Rate of 1848” and the “Use of the 1847s from Boston”.
In F.I.P. competition, Mark’s multi-frame Boston exhibit was a candidate for the Grand Prix National at the World Stamp Show in 2016. His exhibits range from the very early classical (Boston) to a First Day Cover exhibit of the Virginia Dare commemorative of 1937. Along the way, Mark became an accredited philatelic judge to help others enjoy exhibiting as much as he does.
Mark has been extremely active in a large number of philatelic organizations. In the past, he was a Director-at-Large of the American Philatelic Society and a member of its Strategic Planning Committee; the exhibit chair of the Philadelphia National Stamp Expo, Vice President of the Greater Philadelphia Stamp and Collectors Club, a Director of the Postal History Society and a member of the National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists. Currently, in addition to being a member of a number of philatelic organizations, he is a Trustee of The Philatelic Foundation; a member of CANEJ; VP of the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors; and a Director of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society.
Mark has increasingly found time to write articles. They have appeared in the Chronicle of the U.S. Classic Philatelic Issues, the London Philatelist, the Collectors Club Philatelist, the 2009 edition of the American Philatelic Congress Book and the India Post. Most recently, Mark won the Tapling Medal in 2019 from the Royal Philatelic Society of London for his two-part article on the New York Postmaster’s Provisional stamp in the London Philatelist. The first series of articles on Boston Postal History appeared in the February 2025 issue of the Chronicle; the second is awaiting publication and the third is nearly completed.
If you ask Mark why he does all this, he will tell you that it gives him great joy and satisfaction. He knows that when he wakes up, there is a list of things that need his attention; the people in the hobby are a surrogate family; and many have become close friends. What other hobby could be better?
