Philatelic Society of Los Angeles

SESCAL  1945-2022

 

For 78 Years SESCAL was held as the Annual Stamp Exhibition in Southern California

 

This show was the World Series of Philately stamp exhibition held in the Los Angeles area.  Until 2019 it was the major event of the Federated Philatelic Clubs of Southern California. After that it became the major event of The Philatelic Society of Los Angeles.

 

 

No SESCAL show in 2023 or in the Foreseeable Future!

There will not be a SESCAL show in 2023 or in the foreseeable future.  For the last 78 years, SESCAL existed as a place where collectors could improve their collections, sell their stamps, learn about stamps, and enjoy social gatherings with fellow collectors. There were a couple of special features of SESCAL that was different from the typical dealer bourse which also could have all the a fore mentioned characteristics:

  1.  SESCAL provided a venue for exhibitors to show their collections, have these collections judged and critiqued.
  2.  In more recent years, SESCAL was a WSP show which allowed exhibitors to compete in the WSP competition run by the American Philatelic Society.

These last two reasons made it worthwhile for totally unpaid volunteers to help other collectors by running SESCAL as not-for-profit endeavor.

It was decided to close SESCAL for the following reasons:

  • Many or the volunteers that were doing the jobs involved in running the show are getting older and can’t carry their loads anymore,
  • There are too few new volunteers willing to devote the hours and hours of unpaid work to run this type of exhibition.
  • SESCAL is no longer a break-even venture. The new higher costs of venues large enough to hold the exhibits, meetings, dealers, and an auction made SESCAL no longer financially viable.
  • In 2022, SESCAL found a venue that it could afford, that would hold the dealers, an auction and meetings, but did not have the floor space for the exhibits.
  • The APS allowed SESCAL to run SESCAL 2022 as a WSP show with virtual exhibits. SESCAL was very successful in this virtual endeavor with over 140 frames of virtual philatelic exhibits, 42 virtual exhibits of literature articles and all APS accredited judges. However, in 2023, the APS made the decision that WSP shows could no longer have virtual philatelic exhibits. The APS still accepts virtual exhibits of literature articles. (BTW, I don’t personally disagree with this APS decision, virtual philatelic exhibits have several inherent problems that make is almost impossible to be certain all exhibits are presented in a fair and equitable manner.

The result is that SESCAL 2023 and all foreseeable future SESCAL shows have been cancelled.  It is planned that the exhibit frames will be sold.  If anyone is interested in buying frames, please contact Steve Radell or Ed Kawasaki for further information. 

Thanks to all the committee members who helped make SESCAL a great show year after year.  A special thanks to the 2022 group that put together a great virtual exhibition under very difficult circumstances. Our thanks to all the judges, both philatelic and literature, that did a great job with a media that was somewhat difficult and new to them. This show had over 140 frames of great philatelic material and 42 literature articles.  It was a great success.  All these exhibits will remain on the website for your enjoyment!  [LME]