Bicycle Stamps Club Homepage


This is the official website of the Bicycle Stamps Club


Welcome. This is the Official Website of the Bicycle Stamps Club ("BSC")!


     


Are you a bicycle fan? Do you enjoy riding your bicycle? Do you think bicycle transport can contribute to change the future of our planet?

... and do you like philately? And do you collect bicycle stamps, bicycle cancellations, covers ...? So ... you are one of us, you are a cyclophilatelist and this is your club, the Bicycle Stamps Club ! We're International! Our 40 plus members hail from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, The United States....


The Bicycle Stamps Club is a non-profit, all-volunteer association dedicated to sharing information about the thematic collecting of postage stamps and any other philatelic materials depicting or related to bicycles, tricycles and their derivatives.

We invite you to join the BSC on our membership page. Membership benefits include a semi-annual newsletter and access to our international community of bicycle stamps collectors with whom you can share information and knowledge about cyclophilately.

Among our members are collectors, jurors and promoters of philatelic events, who put cyclophilately in the center of thematic philately.


Who are our members?



Each of us is either a bicycling philatelist or a philatelic bicyclist. More specifically, we collect postage stamps, covers and related philatelic materials that include bicyclists or bicycle-related items.

This includes racing bicycles, postmen on bicycles, military bicycles, touring bicycles or antique bicycles -- as long as there is a cycling theme.

The goverments of many countries have issued at least one bicycle related stamp.
The total issued is now over 3,000 and the pace seems to be quickening.
Additionally, there are hundreds of unofficial issues.


History



The Bicycle Stamps Club was formed in 1980 as the Bicycles On Stamps Study Unit of the American Topical Association ("ATA").

The first issue of Spoken' Word, the club's newsletter, was dated August, 1980. At that time there were 20 members.

By early 1985, nine issues had been published. The tenth issue was a 64 page issue that greatly exceeded past efforts.

The ATA unit became inactive. After many months of effort, primarily by Douglas Marchant, to save what remained of the Bicycle Stamp Unit of ATA and the subscriptions of 58 founding members Bicycle Stamps Club was founded in 1986.

In the Summer of 1986, the BSC magazine was scheduled for semi-annual delivery and the name was changed to Bicycle Stamps. By this time BSC had also joined the British Themathic Association.

In 1990, with a new editor (Brian Sole) taking the reins, the magazine became a quarterly 32-page publication.

At present BS magazine is published semi-annually. The Club continues as a member of the British Thematic Association and has seen a gradual but steady increase in membership, now numbering about 40.

To date 120 issues of the cyclophilately magazine have been issued, containing more than 760 relevant articles.


Officers of the BSC



Founder of Bicycle-on-Stamps Unit at ATA: Frank Havnoonian

Presidents of BSC:


Graham Wade (1986-1990)
Douglas Marchant (1990-1991)
Bert Schapelhouman (1991-1993)
Norman Batho (1993-2002)
Brian Sole (2002-2016)
Jari Majander (2016-to present)

Vice-Presidents of BSC:


Graham Wade (1990-1991)
Takao Ono (1991-2002)
Jacques Matthys (2002-2006)
Jari Majander (2006-2016)
Vojtech Jankovič (2021-to present)

Secretaries of BSC:


Norman Batho (1986-1990)
Benoit Carrier (1990-1991)
Tony Teideman (1991-2012)
Ralph Letsch (2014 to present)