Parking will be free at GASS 2025: Neither the Convention Center nor the Renaissance Hotel charge for it. Some show hotels have charged as more than $40 a day!

The Great American Stamp Show 2025 block of rooms at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel is all but sold out. According to the GASS Travel page on the American Philatelic Society website, a few rooms remain for Saturday or Sunday nights, and cancellations may occur closer to the show.

However, the APS recommends you find other accommodations to be sure. It provides a link to Hotels.com that is already set up for the area and the dates. However, other “travel aggregator” sites such as Travelocity or Expedia will work, too. You can also look up the convention center on Google Maps —1551 North Thoreau Dr., Schaumburg, IL 60173 —and ask Google to show you hotels in the area. Note that the prices shown are for bookings now, but can still be used for comparison.

Keep in mind that the “Woodfield” area runs a free “trolley” (shuttle bus) service (map on the left). It is not 24/7, though. Check its website for times and schedules.

Although the main hotel has a shuttle of its own, it does not go to O’Hare Airport, just 13 miles away. Other hotels in the area may offer that service.

[press release]

The APS is pleased to announce the location of the 2027 Great American Stamp Show, unanimously approved by the APS Board: Albuquerque, New Mexico!

The 2027 show will be held August 19-22, 2027 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, located at 401 2nd Street NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Situated in the city’s downtown, the convention center is located just 10 minutes by car from the Albuquerque airport and about a 10 minute walk from the Alvarado Transportation Center.

“We’re excited to host our 2027 show in ‘the Land of Enchantment,’” said APS Director of Membership and Shows, Wendy Masorti. “Albuquerque, a city with a rich culture and history, is a new location for us, and we look forward to making this an impactful and experiential Great American Stamp Show.”

New Mexico’s most populous city and the ballooning capital of the world, Albuquerque is home to incredible natural landscapes; unique, world-class museums (like the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History and the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum); a thriving local food and beverage scene; and countless filming locations from award-winning films and TV shows, including Lone Survivor and AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Thrill-seekers (and truly extreme philatelists) will find options for hot air balloon, helicopter, and even glider rides in the area, and should check out the city’s legendary Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway, the longest aerial tramway in the Americas and the second longest in the world.

And for those wanting to see more of New Mexico while in the area for GASS, APS Executive Director Scott English personally recommends taking the scenic train ride from the city to New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, and visit to the Palace of Governors, which is featured on a Liberty Issue stamp.

We hope to see you all at the Great American Stamp Show in 2027!

Show-rate reservations are now open for the main show hotel for Great American Stamp Show 2025, the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center. For the past few years, the main GASS hotels have sold out months in advance. These are always good rates and the most convenient hotels to the shows, and often the sites of food functions (i.e., banquets and breakfasts).

Go to the APS website page for GASS 2025 for more information or directly to the reservations page.

GASS 2025 includes Americover 2025, the official show and convention of the American First Day Cover Society. It will include meetings, seminars, a cachetmakers bourse, the biggest collection of FDC dealers all year, the free AFDCS hospitality suite, a “silent” auction, and more for FDC collectors.

Dragon Cards will have a double booth Saturday at the Cachetmakers Bourse of Great American Stamp Show in Hartford. I’m going to try to bring almost everything!

Order now at www.dragoncards.biz or the eBay Store www.ebay.com/str/dragoncardsfdcs and and pick up at the Bourse (Saturday only) and I will refund your P&H charges.

But today is the last day to order that I will be able to mail out orders before the show.

The Americover 2024 Silent Auction has more than 250 lots this year! Americover is the American First Day Cover Society’s component of Great American Stamp Show 2024, which is being held August 15-18 in Hartford, Conn.

The lots may be viewed and bid upon in the AFDCS Hospitality Suite during GASS 2024, 8 p.m. to midnight Wednesday through Saturday nights, in the Marriott Hotel’s Capital Ballroom. Admission to the Hospitality Suite is free and open to the public. Some refreshments will be available.

Nothing beats seeing these amazing covers and cover lots in person, but you can also see the lot descriptions online here and send bids to silent@afdcs.org Bidding both at the Suite and online ends at 10:30 pm EDT Saturday the 17th.

AFDCS Post-GASS Sunday Dinner: We’re going to Plan B. Literally. That’s the name of the restaurant, Plan b Burger Bar, about a five-minute walk from the convention center and Marriott. We’ll meet in the Marriott lobby at 6 p.m., and we will have a private room. You can find the menu here.

As always, the post-show dinner is “Dutch treat:” We’ll each get separate checks. Spouses, partners and friends are welcome, whether or not they are AFDCS members.
Want to check the location on Google Maps? It’s at 35 Front Street in Hartford. Its website is headlined, “burgers. beer. bourbon.” so make sure you have a Designated Walker!

There will be at least two pictorial postmarks for each day of Great American Stamp Show 2024 in August 15-18 in Hartford, Conn., and sometimes more.

One set of postmarks for each day of the show are for the “GASS Station.” A second set, for the “Americover Station,” was created by the American First Day Cover Society, one of the co-sponsors of the show. The only “official” show cachets for GASS are from the AFDCS.

You can click on any of the illustrations to see a larger version.

All eight postmarks were designed by Martin Kent Miller, editor of the journals of GASS co-sponsors the AFDCS and the American Topical Association and a professional marketing and graphics consultant.

Here are the four GASS Station postmarks:

When Americover was the independent show and convention of the AFDCS, a different pictorial postmark was available for each day of the show, and that tradition has continued now that Americover is part of GASS.

The Thursday, August 15, Americover postmark is “Celebrating Public Art in America,” in concordance with the American Philatelic Society’s “Stamp Soiree” at the Wadsworth Atheneum art museum that evening. The postmark, which measures 2.83- by 1.71-inches, may also be used on first day covers of the U.S. Pinback Buttons stamps that are being issued that day.

The GASS 2024 show cachet, by award-winning professional artist and Connecticut native Chris Calle, will show a variety of the pinback buttons produced since the first Americover in 1993.

Friday August 16’s postmark honors Hartford’s Charter Oak, the legendary tree that is a symbol of American independence. The U.S. Postal Service is issuing its Autumn Colors stamps that day, and no doubt, before it fell in an 1856 storm, the Charter Oak’s leaves turned colors in the fall. That postmark is 2.95- by 1.56-inches.

Calle’s cachet for Friday also depicts the Charter Oak tree, and the 1935 stamp and commemorative coin that honored it.

On Saturday, when the GASS Cachetmakers Bourse will be held, the Americover Station postmark notes National Cachetmakers Day. This one is 2.91- by 1.69-inches. The show cover cachet by Calle commemorates the 250th anniversary of the First Continental Congress (for which a stamp will be issued in September) and Connecticut’s delegate to it, Roger Sherman. He also was a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and a key Founding Father of the U.S.

The 10-cent stamp shown in the cachet is one of four issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 1974 as part of its Bicentennial celebration

Sunday’s Americover Station postmark, measuring 2.92- by 1.69-inches, is “Celebrating Heroes of the Batter’s Box.” Calle’s cachet artwork honors Hartford resident Samuel Clemens, better known as author Mark Twain, who was an avid baseball fan and supported local teams. The Hartford Dark Blues were a charter member of the National League in 1876-77, a few years after Clemens moved to the city. (The Hartford Yard Goats, a professional minor league (Double-A) baseball team affiliated with the Colorado Rockies, will be playing at home during GASS 2024.)

Both Miller and Calle will be at Great American Stamp Show for all four days. Calle, in fact, has a station at the AFDCS booth where he will be available to chat with collectors and sign autographs. Miller will be splitting his time between the ATA and AFDCS booths.

In addition, the U.S. Postal Service has its own postmarks for the two issues that will be released during the show, Pinback Buttons

And Autumn Colors

Thursday’s show postmarks may be used on first day covers of Pinback Buttons, and Friday’s on Autumn Colors FDCs, but Friday’s may not be used on the stamps issued the day before (that is, creating a bogus “early release” FDC for Pinback Buttons).

The AFDCS will be selling unserviced cacheted envelopes and already-serviced covers like this one, both at its booth and, after the show, by mail.

Latest news from Great American Stamp Show 2024:

A tentative schedule will go online soon. However, the show is running out of time slots (there is a limited number of rooms), especially the better ones. Also, the printed program will go to press soon, and you’ll want your event in that. Fill out this form.

Also, have you pre-registered yet? It only takes a minute, it’s free and there’s no obligation — no one will be taking attendance! Then you won’t have to wait in line to get your badge and the badge itself will look so much nicer than the handwritten ones. That link is here.