Beginning in 1938, the National Tuberculosis Association, our national Christmas Seal issuing society ran a collector service. Headed up by pioneer CS&CSS member Charles Lorenz, the Collector Service offered Christmas Seals from around the world. We didn't know Lorenz's duties included writing reports on newly issued seals for the NTA, but it makes sense. The NTA was interested in trends within the charitable fundraising seal business of its competitors; perhaps watching for the occasional fraudulent fund. Member George Painter, in the latest edition of Seal News (Winter 2024), wrote about a fraudulent fund (the Independent Cancer Research Foundation) listed in the Mosbaugh All Fund Medical section.
These reports, "Analysis of US Competitive and Foreign Seals" form a catalog of every US local and foreign TB seal, as well as other charitable fundraising seals not affiliated with the NTA.
Only recently coming to light, they were donated to the CS&CSS by Dr. Richard Muller, Professor of Military History, USAF School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Dr. Muller explains, "I grew up in New Jersey. My paternal grandparents lived in Roseland. Growing up in the 1960's and early 1970's my two brothers Bob and Steve and I visited them many times, and frequently met a couple we knew as Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lil. (It was many years before we learned that Charles and Lillian Lorenz were not in fact blood relatives.) My dad (Wilbur H. Muller) was a lifelong stamp collector and all of us dabbled in stamp collecting at one time. Uncle Charlie was very generous with his time and expertise, and frequently gave us envelopes with exotic stamps on them that we soaked off and placed in our albums. Two generations of Muller sons (my dad, and his brothers Dick and Don, along with us kids) fondly remembered the larger than life Uncle Charlie doing everything from showing my dad and uncles "behind the scenes" at the Automat, to meeting us in the city at Gimbels stamp department (when there was such a thing).
We visited Charlie and Lil several times at their home in Jamaica, Queens. There we saw his Christmas Seal operation - cardboard tubes containing sheets of seals, correspondence from all over the world. As a little kid, you don't really appreciate what you are looking at, but I later learned that Uncle Charlie was one of the world's premier authorities on Christmas seals.
When Uncle Charlie passed away, as we were not blood relations, we never found out what became of his collection. (Purchased in 1981 by John Denune) But Charlie had given my dad some items over the years. My dad passed last November and there was a box in the attic containing a number of stiff paper binders, containing reports, many of which Charles Lorenz authored or co-authored. Most of these have pages of the actual seals listed, mostly numbered and identified."
In addition to these historic reports, Dr. Muller also donated two complete 1946 Green's Catalogs, an unused 1949 Tatham Christmas Seal album, and a few articles on Christmas Seals which have been added to the CS&CSS Archive; a pamphlet, The Story of the Christmas Seal, by Elizabeth Cole 11-27-1936; and an article from The Sunday News, Queens section, on Charles Lorenz from 12-16-1956
This material will be offered in upcoming issues of Seal News by CS&CSS Auction Manager, Joseph Ward.
Muller donation auction lots.pdf