Copyright 2011-2018 John N. Lupia, III

Alfred Fitler Henkels (1866-1933), was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 31, 1866, the son of native Philadelphians, George Jacob Henkels (1819-1883), a cabinet maker, and Elizabeth Regina Snyder Henkels (1821-1881).

He is the younger brother of Stan. V. Henkels. He worked as a bank clerk for the Fidelity Trust Company, Philadelphia.

Fig. Kennedy Brothers, Millinery dealers at Philadelphia had Joseph Hoover (1830-1913), a local printer design and print their chromolithograph trade cards celebrating their new store location in 1880. This design of an Italian post boy may have been influenced and inspired by Albert Fitler Henkel's passion for Italian postage stamp collecting. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library.

He was a famous stamp collector and author who specialized in Italian postal history.

He was a member of the Philadelphia Philatelic Society and was a regular exhibotor.

He was president of the Philadelphia Stamp Club.

He was the Secretary of the American Philatelic Society.

In 1891 he married Anna Regina Rocholl. They had three children : Alfred (1893-), Victor (1898-), and Louis (1900-).

Figs. Italian covers sold to Alfred F. Henkels by a Philadelphia scarp paper and rag dealer (straccivendolo) sometime about 1905.

The top cover is valued at 325,000 EURO. The Bottom at a mere 250,000 EURO. Published in Club della Filatelia d'Oro (www.clubfilateliaoro.it).

The episode is first recorded in recorded in Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News, October 12 (1907), and reprinted in The Collectors Club Philatelist (1933), pages 63-64, and finally immortalized in the classic Williams Brothers, The Postage Stamp: Its History and Recognition (1956) on page 72. The letters are addressed to Vito Viti and his son and at Philadelphia the Viti Brothers, rare antique art dealers at New York and Philadelphia who imported marbles, antiquities and coins from Italy and Europe into New York in the early 1820's and later on at Philadelphia. They are cited in John N. Lupia, III, American Numismatic Auctions to 1875 (2013), Vol. 1 : 76-77. They very probably were dealers who sold Roman, Greek and European coins and medals at auction regularly.

He co-catalogued an auction with his older brother Stan. V. Henkels for a sale held on October 23-24, 1893.

Fig. Post Card from Charles de Grave Sells (1856-1942), O. B. E., correspondence about selling him a set of Italian postage stamps of the Roman States writing from Cornigliano, Genoa Province, Liguria, Italy. Postmarked Treno Ambulante Tondo Riquardrato, i.e., Railway Postmark with the cancel stamp being a Circle in a Square, Pisa-Torino, 6 October, 1907, Train Station #C. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library.

He died on August 25, 1933 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

See Bibliography down below this ad.

Bibliography :

American Journal of Philately (1906) : 292

"United States Stamped Paper," Mekeel's Weekly Stamp News (1908) : 315

The Stamp Collectors Annual (1911)

The London Philatelist (1913)

Philatelic Gazette (1915) : 114

American Philatelist (1918) : 258

Stamps : A Weekly Magazine of Philately (1937) : 137

The Collectors Club Philatelist (1938)

Leon Norman Williams and Maurice Williams, The Postage Stamp: Its History and Recognition (1956) : 72

Philatelic Literature Review (1997)

Antonello Cerruti, "Alfred Henkels e l'Archivio Viti," Il Collezionista October (2014) : 44-45

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