Young Philatelists – Come and Tell Us A Story by Robert Benninghoff
I have had the honour to work with several young exhibitors in the past 4 years – largely due to the help and encouragement of Vesma Grinfelds. Vesma has been the USA commissioner to several international shows with Youth Classes, and Vesma is also the young exhibitor coordinator for AAPE, and the liaison with the APS for the annual young exhibitor Champion of Champions. Working with young philatelists is like planting a forest. It will take 30 to 40 years to harvest the wood. Similarly working with young exhibitors today will hopefully encourage them to continue with our hobby now or return 30 to 40 years in the future. Many of us rekindled our philatelic interests in our 50s and 60s.
My journey with young exhibitors began when Vesma encouraged my granddaughters to try their hand at exhibiting. Laurelei started at age 12 with The Life of Saint Patrick. Beginning as a single frame exhibit, she expanded it, this year, to two frames. Laurelei won the GASS Youth grand award in 2023, and the Youth Champion of Champions in 2024, and recently received a Large Vermeil at PHILAKOREA. Her very competitive sister, Tabitha, joined the ranks at age 8 with her single frame exhibit The History and Legends of Blarney Castle. Tabitha won the Youth Grand award at GASS in 2024 and recently received a Vermeil at PHILAKOREA and is working on her second exhibit The Norman Invasion of Ireland.
During these four years I had the privilege to meet other young exhibitors, particularly at the GASS. I talked with 5 of the young exhibitors at GASS 2025 and we decided to enter their exhibits in the new Young Exhibitors Class in STAMPA 2025, the Irish National Stamp show held this October in Dublin, Ireland. (Figure 1).
We had 6 exhibits from the USA competing with three from Ireland, for the Irish Champion of Champions. I am happy to report that Ellen Tate from the USA won the Young Exhibitor Grand award with her exhibit Swiftie Stamps – A Philatelic Tribute to the Era’s of Taylor Swift (Figure 2). Two other exhibits from the USA received 2 of 3 Honourable Mention awards, given by the jury. The Reserve Grand and 3rd Honourable Mention award went to Irish Exhibits.
Working with over 30 young exhibitors in recent years has taught me a few interesting lessons.
Youth versus Young Exhibitors.
The young exhibitors that I have spoken with do not like to be called youth. It is somewhat condescending to refer to 18- to 21-year-olds as “Youth”. I had several recent conversations with Bill Hedley, President of the Federation of European Philatelic Associations (FEPA) and Chief Judge at STAMPA on this topic and we decided a more appropriate term would be “young exhibitors”. A small change in terminology, but one that was well received by the young Irish exhibitors that I met with at STAMPA (16- to 18-year-olds) (Figure 3).
Exhibiting versus Stamp Collecting.
Very Few of the young exhibitors that I have met are interested in Stamp Collecting or even want to be called Philatelists. They are interested in telling a Story. They are being trained to tell stories in school every day by writing reports, essays and science / history / social projects. One of the Irish Exhibits was Man’s Quest to Explore and Conquer Space. One of the USA exhibits was a history story on Celebrating 200 Years of Florida’s Capital Tallahassee. These young people know how to tell a story. We have to encourage these young exhibitors to tell their stories using philatelic materials. They can find the materials on the internet and in most cases all they need is mentor to show them how to structure an exhibit using stamps and covers.
How to Encourage Young Story Tellers to become Philatelic Exhibitors.
All local stamp societies must become involved with encouraging young exhibitors. Mail your Stamp Show advertisement to local schools. (Figure 4). Appoint a person to be the young exhibitor coordinator and to contact the school principals to see if they would allow this information in the schools. See if the principal will give the names of the Art Teachers; History Teachers and Science Teachers. Advertise on your social media sites that you have a young exhibitor class in your stamp show. I have been asked by two local teachers to mail them postcards from my travels along with a description of the stamps that I used. I hope by next spring their classes will be producing philatelic exhibits.
Allow Young Exhibitors to Enter as a TEAM
I have had many recent discussions about young exhibitors entering as individuals or as a team. Why not allow both? The age group of the Team exhibit would be determined by the oldest member of the Team and I suggest allowing exhibit Teams to have 2 to 4 members. The Team could develop their exhibit as part of a school project. The Team could be a family, allowing busy parents to focus on one exhibit with their children. The Team could be from a religious group with youth activities, a sports team that would like to promote their club, or a youth club (Figure 5) Consider that if you have 3 or 4 TEAMs with four exhibitors each, you have 12 to 16 young philatelists now and into the future. Consider the return on investment if we do this each year for local and World Series of Philately shows in the USA / Europe / Rest of the world.
Sponsor Young Exhibitors.
An important note – most young people that exhibit do not attend stamp shows or stamp club meetings.
Most of their materials come from Internet shopping. Hence, we must reach out to the young exhibitors with encouragement and incentives. My suggestion is to contact local High Schools and offer a College Scholarship to a Senior or Team of Seniors that create and exhibit philatelic materials. National Organizations or Societies could offer a scholarship for the best young exhibitor in their organization and give the award at the Annual General Meeting (Figure 6).
Several Members of the Éire Philatelic Association (ÉPA) are dedicating funds to the ÉPA to sponsor young exhibitors. Another approach would be to provide the youth organization or individual with the funds to purchase the stamps and covers. Most young exhibitors do not spend much to assemble their materials, and most exhibits that I have seen contain relatively modern stamps and covers, with an investment of $500 or less. The APS young exhibitor evaluation sheet does not even mention Rarity as a judging criterion (Figure 7). I am sure that most schools and organizations would be happy to hear that a local stamp club or national organization is willing to provide financial support to create youth exhibits.
Do Not forget the Rewards
Most North American Shows with young exhibitor competitions provide attractive ribbons and medals and trophies. European Shows rarely provide anything other than a score card. STAMPA 2025 made every effort to honour the young exhibitors and their exhibits. Each exhibitor received a STAMPA medal with their name engraved on the back (Figure 8). An Post provided the special prizes as well as a Goodie Bag of Irish philatelic materials (Figure 9). A second Goodie Bag was provided by Padraig O’Shea of Raven Stamps, one of the leading Irish Stamp Dealers. Young Exhibitor take great pride in showing off their philatelic accomplishments (Figure 10). Make sure that your show provides both a Youth Evaluation Form filled out by the jury and attractive show ribbons and trophies for the best youth exhibit and attractive recognition ribbons and medals for the other young exhibitors at your show.
Final Thoughts
The future of our hobby is in our own Hands. Many people complain about the lack of trees but few are willing to plant new forests. The Éire Philatelic Association is sponsoring young exhibitor activities in the USA and Ireland, as well as at Boston 2026. Will you or your organization help with starting new forests of young philatelic exhibitors?
Figure 1: STAMPA 2025 Exhibition Catalogue. 2025 was the first time in over 10 years that the Irish National Stamp Show offered a Young Exhibitor Class.
Figure 2: Ellen Tate’s Title Page. Ellen’s exhibit “Swiftie Stamps – A Philatelic Tribute to the Era’s of Taylor Swift” was in the 2025 USA Youth Champion of Champions, she won the Youth Grand award at NOJEX 2025 and she won the Young Exhibitors Champion of Champions at STAMPA 2025.
Figure 3: Robert Benninghoff in middle of the Photograph with the Young Exhibitors from Scoil Aireagail, Ballyhale, County Kilkenny, Ireland. Ms. Diane Dalton formed her art class into three teams of four students. Two of the exhibits have since been entered into the Youth Class of Boston 2026 with the Team Captain as the named exhibitor.
Figure 4: The Collector Magazine No 3/2025, Quarterly Publication of An Post, the Irish Post Office. An Post was instrumental in publicizing the Young Exhibitor Class in STAMPA 2025. Three age groups were available – Under 12; 12 to 15, and 16 to 18. The Scoil Aireagail students were in the 16 to 18 group.
Figure 5: An Post issued a set of 2 stamps on August 7 2025, Celebrating Irish Youth Clubs. Each young exhibitor at STAMPA 2025 received a full sheet of 8 of these stamps.
Figure 6: The Éire Philatelic Association 75th Anniversary Card issued by An Post for STAMPA 2025. The ÉPA paid the frame fees for the young exhibitors from USA and Ireland as well as provided the young exhibitor Grand and Reserve Grand Trophies. The ÉPA will be a major sponsor along with AAPE, of the USA young exhibitor Champion of Champions at BALPEX 2026. The ÉPA’s Annual General Meeting will also be held at BALPEX 2026.
Figure 7: The APS Uniform Exhibit Evaluation Form for Youth. Note the five age groups, with each age group emphasizing different aspects of Exhibiting.
Figure 8: STAMPA Exhibitor Medal showing the Four Provinces of Ireland. Each of the 17 young exhibitors received a STAMPA medal with their names engraved on the back.
Figure 9: An Post provided 3 special prizes for the exhibitors with Honourable Mention. The Book is a 100th anniversary of key events in Irish History from 1913 to 1922 as illustrated by Irish Stamps.
Figure 10: Laurelei’s bedroom door decorated with the Ribbons from various shows where she exhibited over the last three years.
Acknowledgements to Robert Benninghoff, the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors and Vesma Grinfelds (AAPE Youth Coordinator); as well as The Eire Philatelic Association, An Post (Irish Post Office) and Padraig O’Shea (Raven Stamps), who were major sponsors of the Young Exhibitor Competition at STAMPA 2025.