SLOANE, GEORGE BENEDICT

Copyright 2011-2018 John N. Lupia, III

George Benedict Sloane (1898-1958), was born April 3, 1898 at Kings, New York, son of Irish immigrant parents, Daniel J. Sloane (1871-1917), and Mary Agnes McCorkle Sloane (1878-).

He began collecting as a young boy prior to 1910 and by 1915 he was already known throughout the United States as a stamp authority. He was working for Gorham Silver Company but soon entered the employ of John Murray Bartels, the well-known stamp dealer in New York. He next entered the firm of John A. Klemann. In 1918, he worked for Charles J. Gregory on West 42nd Street. Soon afterwards he opened his own stamp shop at 116 Nassau Street. From 1920 - 1948 he was a stamp auctioneer. He auctioned the collections of Col. Max G. Johl, Beverly Sedgwick King, and N. J. Senator Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Sr..

On June 2, 1925 he married Elizabeth "Betty" Florentine, at Brooklyn, New York.

Among the estates he appraised were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Col. Edward H. R. Green, and Alfred H. Caspary.

Correspondence from Juan Muna, Department of Internal Affairs, Naval Government, Guam, postmarked numerical duplex Guam, May 27, 1948. Postage rate 23 Cents for Air Mail - Strip of two Scott #C33 and Special Delivery - Scott #E17. Courtesy Lupia Numismatic Library.

Sloane wrote a stamp column for STAMPS from its beginning September 17, 1932 until the day prior to his demise July 14, 1958, which was published posthumously on July 26th. In those twenty-six years he wrote 1,350 articles.

He died of a heart attack after a long bout with pneumonia on Tuesday, July 15, 1958. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

Sloane was inducted into the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 1962.

Bibliography :

George Turner, Sloane's Column (Bureau Issues Association, Inc., 1961)