First Day Covers of the H&E Stamp Company

Gary Dickinson
Released August 2018.
86 pages, 8.5x11, spiral bound.
Colour C$ 24.00 [ISBN 978-1-927119-91-4].

First Day Covers of the H&E Stamp Company is Gary Dickinson’s fourteenth BNAPS book about different aspects of Canadian First Day Covers. In this volume, he describes and illustrates the contribution of a small Ottawa firm, the H&E Stamp Company, founded by Earl Graziadei and Harold Crick during the 1950s and 1960s, that could easily be considered the high point of Canadian FDC publishing. From its beginning in 1955 until the business closed in 1972, the small company, operating primarily from Grazieadei’s basement print shop, was one of the leaders in the Canadian FDC marketplace. For a few short years in the mid-1950s, their cacheted covers were the de facto leaders of the pack.

Dr. Gary Dickinson worked in British Columbia secondary schools, colleges, and universities for 35 years until he retired in 2001. The last 20 years were at Okanagan College and Okanagan University College where he served as South Okanagan Regional Director for five years and Dean of the Faculty of Adult and Continuing Education for 15 years. He was also Acting Vice-President, Academic, for the year and a half prior to his retirement. Gary has continued his association with Okanagan College by chairing its Central Okanagan Advisory Committee and serving on the Research Ethics Board. He was co-founder of the BNAPS FDC Study Group and is editor of its newsletter, First Impressions. Gary and his wife Barbara have six grown children and were foster parents for 20 years.