[press release]
The Philatelic Foundation, the leading authority in the United States for the expertizing and certification of stamps and covers, is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a substantial grant from the David T. Beals III Charitable Trust. Mr. Beals, who passed away in 1987, was a prominent philatelist and collector of Western covers, his family having been early settlers in Kansas City, Missouri.

Previous generous grants from the Trust provided for the PF’s acquisition of the VSC6000 and Bruckner Spectrometer, two pieces of high-tech equipment that have brought added assurance and confidence to its expertizing process and the development of its widely acclaimed PF Search data base that permits on-line review of the PF’s library of certificates.

The new grant will further advance the application of digital age technology to the PF’s remarkable collection of research material. This grant will permit the digital conversion of the PF’s collection of Stanley Ashbrook’s 16 notebooks of correspondence, 38 file drawers of index cards, and over 1000 color slides into a word-searchable database that will be posted on the PF’s website. Additional enhancements to the PF Search program, including certificates dating back to the PF’s beginnings in 1945, will be digitized and posted on its website, as well as studies of interesting current submissions made to the PF for certification. In all, nine different projects are to be funded and the cumulative result will be to convert the accumulation of PF research and information into a visual and searchable database.

Special thanks to the David T, Beals, III, Charitable Trust for making this all possible.

The Philatelic Foundation is a Section 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational organization chartered by the State of New York.