If you were to ask me to name the one event in my philatelic experience which had the most profound affect on stamp collecting activity in the United States, I would have to respond “The affair of the Hammerskjold error.”

This long, bitterly contested issue between the Postmaster and the hobby, created a volume of stamp collecting publicity far beyond any ever received- either before or since. And while tempers flared over the question of “Postmaster Day’s decision,” old appetites for collecting were whetted and revived.

Former collectors who hadn’t looked into their albums in years suddenly became avid philatelists. Quite inadvertently, Postmaster Day had infused an interest in stamp collecting far beyond the reaches of stamp columns, Popular Mechanics advertisements and stamp society efforts.

I have never heard of Postmaster Day being selected for a philatelic honor of any sort, but in my book, he can very well be named “Public Relations Philatelist of the Century.”