Digital First Days Available To All Members

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[AFDCS press release]
AFDCS Makes Digital Edition of First Days Available To All Members

First Days, the award-winning journal of the American First Day Cover Society, is now available online to all classes of membership. The magazine is one of the principal benefits of membership in the AFDCS.

Each issue will be available in three different versions:

  • A page-flip version which simulates an actual magazine on a monitor connected to a Windows or Macintosh computer;
  • A mobile version for use on tablets, phones and other mobile devices; and
  • A .pdf version, whose file can be downloaded and saved.

The online editions are available to members as soon as the issue is submitted to the printer, allowing earlier access to the journal, and without the problems inherent in postal delivery.

The AFDCS offers several levels of membership: Online, which does not include a printed copy of First Days; Regular, which does; Silver and Gold, which allow members to express their support of the AFDCS and first day cover collecting; and Life, which includes both the online and hard-copy magazines.

Members who want access to these digital editions of First Days, as well as other AFDCS digital publications planned for the near future, and have not previously registered on the site should click on “Member Register”in the top left corner of the AFDCS website, www.afdcs.org.

“Digital publishing of hobby publications is the future, and now, for the AFDCS, it’s the present,” said AFDCS president Lloyd A. de Vries. “I especially want to thank webmaster Todd Ronnei, who spent months seeking and then testing the necessary software.”

Ronnei was also responsible for compiling a digital archive of First Days from the first issue in 1955 through 2011, which is available on a DVD for $79 or a flash drive for $89. An update disk is planned covering subsequent years, although .pdf files of all issues from January 2011 to the present are still available.

The American First Day Cover Society is the world’s largest not-for-profit organization dedicated to the collecting of FDCs. Each issue of First Days is published in full color and includes articles, columns, Society business, a non-commercial Cover Exchange, and the best collection of FDC advertisements anywhere.

For more information on the AFDCS, visit www.afdcs.org or write to the AFDCS, P.O. Box 16277 Tucson, Arizona 85732-6277, or via e-mail at afdcs@afdcs.org.