Many of you will have known Dick Malott Canada’s foremost Canadian aerophilatelist. He made his career in the Canadian Air Force and, upon retirement, worked for the Canadian War Museum where he was instrumental in collecting and documenting Canada’s Victoria Cross medals.
Dick began collecting and researching Canadian air mails in the 1950s and was able to interview several of the pilots who had made the pioneer flights. He developed outstanding collections of “Canadian Pioneer and Semi-Official Air Mail Flown Covers“, and of “Canadian Interrupted Covers“, which won 12 large and five gold medals at FIP shows, and many Canadian and American Air Mail Society awards.
Dick was very involved in organized philately. As well as serving as a Canadian Commissioner or judge at over 20 FIP international stamp shows, he was a former Director and Executive Director of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada; a Past President of the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society; and the former Canadian Delegate to the F.I.P. Commission for Astrophilately. He remained active in philately until very recently: he was a judge at ORAPEX in Ottawa in 2018, and on the organizing committee of ORAPEX in 2019. Dick was also the Editor-in-Chief for the First Edition of The Air Mails of Canada and Newfoundland – part of the 6th edition of The American Air Mail Catalogue.
Dick was elected a member of the Aerophilatelic Hall of Fame in 1996. Among his other philatelic awards, he was a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada (1986) and a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society of London (2005). In 2006, he received the British North America Philatelic Society Life Time Achievement Award. He was presented with a F.I.S.A. Gold Pin “for his service and devotion to Aero- and Astrophilately” in 2009.
A detailed philatelic biography of Dick has been posted on The Canadian Aerophilatelic Society’s website at www.aerophilately.ca
Written by Charles Verge, Canada