Martin Kent Miller Is New AFDCS Executive Secretary

The American First Day Cover Society has chosen Martin Kent Miller as its new Executive Secretary and contracted with his firm The Image Forge to manage the AFDCS Central Office. The new address is P.O. Box 27, Greer, SC 29652-0027. The office telephone number remains (540) 940-1629 and the email address still is afdcs@afdcs.org.

Miller, 55, succeeds David Lorms, who became Executive Secretary in November 2020 and resigned to pursue other interests. Miller has been married for 33 years to Jennifer Miller, the executive director of the American Topical Association. They have three children and one granddaughter.

He currently edits First Days, the official journal of the AFDCS; Topical Time (American Topical Association), The United States Specialist (United States Stamp Society), The Philatelic Exhibitor (American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors), and the Pennsylvania Postal Historian (Pennsylvania Postal History Society). He is a past editor of The American Philatelist (American Philatelic Society) and was chief content officer of the APS.

Miller holds a BFA in Computer Graphic Design from Harding University. He created The Image Forge firm in 2003 so that he could work in design, graphics, printing, marketing, and communications, all in one job. 

For the first time, he will have a cachetmakers bourse table at Great American Stamp Show 2023, for his new Philatelic Press line of cachets and stamp art. He also collects Fluegel cachets and FDCs of the 1934 National Parks issue, as well as Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia in World War II). His exhibit of the latter, Böhmen und Mähren: Nazi Propaganda in World War II Czechoslovakia, will be his first competitive exhibit. His major topical interests are emus on stamps and Albrecht Dürer, and the postal history of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

The AFDCS Central Office process membership and other records, coordinates activities and handles other administrative tasks. Miller and The Image Forge are also charged with providing the AFDCS with a new integrated records system and website. 

"I see the job as an opportunity to make a contribution to one area of philately that I truly love, FDCs and cachet making," he says. "While I enjoy editing, my professional experience is in integrated communications. This gives me an opportunity to make a bigger contribution."