Frederick Maynard Sundman (or “Maynard” as all knew him) was one of the most successful and innovative stamp dealers of the twentieth century. Born in 1915, Sundman was a stamp dealer from the age of twenty, beginning a small mail order company which he operated out of his home. Sundman joined the army at the outbreak of WWII and was sent to North Africa where he won the Bronze Star which was given for “meritorious achievement in a war zone.” Coming back to the United States in 1945, he renewed his interest in stamps and continued as a stamp dealer.
Sundman’s great contribution to the hobby of philately was his founding of the Littleton Stamp and Coin Company and later purchasing the Mystic Stamp Company. Littleton gradually phased out stamps and the Mystic Stamp Company, under Sundman’s guidance, became the largest stamp company in the world. Today, under the management of Maynard Sundman’s son, Don, Mystic employs over a hundred people and is involved in selling stamps and printing albums and catalogs and marketing philatelic materials of all kinds.
Under Maynard Sundman’s ownership, the Mystic Stamp Company became the preeminent stamp retailer in the United States, a position it not only still holds today, but for which Mystic has no serious contender. Mystic took the approval 
concept, which had been developed by Henry Harris of H. E. Harris and combined it with an advertising and marketing prowess that still remains unequaled. The ubiquitous match book covers advertising “fifty stamps for $1 with our approvals” that came with every pack of cigarettes in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were Sundman’s idea. Sundman also began advertising in Sunday newspaper advertising supplements to attract new people to the hobby and Mystic’s stamps on approval. The high point of response came from a 1952 nationwide ad in which Sundman offered ten WWII Hitler stamps for a dime. Over 500,000 people requested this premium and Mystic’s approvals. Even today, mainstream stamp dealers still see this premium in collections as they were sent to the collectors by Mystic.
Mystic expanded and changed with the times and tried to move their approval collectors to more advanced phases of the hobby. Mystic publishes a United States price list and is the largest retailer of better US stamps. Mystic sells foreign stamps too and purchased Fleetwood, the largest US First Day Cover company, to expand their cover business.
For the last twenty years, Mystic Stamp Company has continued to be owned by the Sundman family and is today managed by Maynard Sundman’s son, Don. Under Don’s leadership, Mystic has continued the approval business and the US pricelist business. But Don too has changed with the times,
adding an online presence. Most importantly, Mystic expanded into publishing. Realizing that stamp collectors can’t collect unless they have stamp albums in which to put their stamps, Mystic, stepping in after the faltering of the Harris album line, has produced a very appealing, attractively priced United States specialty album. Mystic now markets complete mint year set collections for selected worldwide countries, with albums to keep the stamps in. And Mystic often has special offers when they can get quantities of philatelically desirable material. In the past they have marketed the first US stamp and the Penny Black of Great Britain, the world’s first postage stamp, to tens of thousands of collectors.
The hobby of stamp collecting has traditionally been very inward looking. If a person has an interest in stamps and makes some effort, he can find hundreds of stamp dealers and articles and journals from which to explore and expand his interest. Mystic and Maynard Sundman took a different approach to the hobby. With his expertise in mass market advertising, Sundman brought, through mail order approvals, more stamp shops to more Main Streets USA than any other stamp dealer or society. More stamp collectors today are part of the philatelic fraternity because of Maynard Sundman and the Mystic Stamp Company than for any other reason.