Owner Biography
Daniel Poneman
Daniel B. Poneman (born 1956) inherited his interest in his stamps from his father, Meyer, who he remembers soaking large quantities of envelopes and then laying the stamps out on the bedspread to dry, stacking thousands of low denomination stamps in tightly bound little stacks. The value of these stamps, then and now, was negligible, but it provided hours of tranquil enjoyment. Father and son would go to stamp shows at the Commodore Perry hotel in Toledo, Ohio, gazing longingly at the hopelessly expensive White Plains souvenir sheets and the Graf Zeppelins. To encourage Dan’s interest, Meyer bought him the full set of famous American stamps and overrun countries stamps, and consoled him for a lost swim race by buying him the 30-cent orange Franklin stamp from 1860; he could only afford buying a copy with a hole in the center of the stamp. Poignant stamp mishaps included finding Meyer’s stacks of the 1952 Hawaiian airmail sheets and the 1956 FIPEX souvenir sheets fused together by moisture.
At the time of his passing in 1991, Meyer had a nearly complete mint set of US stamps from 1902 on, and every stamp that he could afford from the 19th Century. So he owned US1 but not US2, the Century of Progress but not the Zeppelins, and most of the other issues except the dollar-denominated stamps and the early 90-cent Washington stamps.
To honor his father’s memory, Dan resolved to “finish the collection” – starting with White Plains and the Zeppelins, then the missing 19th Century issues, and finally the Back of the Book.
Dan could not shake the idea that an Inverted Jenny would fulfill his pledge to his father. In 2003 he saw one come on the market, but decided that he needed a new car more than the stamp. (OK, the stamp would have cost more than the car!) Now he is the proud owner of No. 63, which lost its gum during the Blitz, when the vault where it was being held was doused with water to put out the flames from a Nazi bombing raid.
Dan was educated at Harvard and Oxford University. In government, he served under three Presidents, as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy and earlier as Special Assistant to the President for Nonproliferation at the National Security Council. In the private sector, he practiced law and for eight years was President and CEO of Centrus Energy Corp., where he launched the first new US production line of enriched uranium since 1954. He has published four books. His hobbies include triathlon and playing rock and roll music. Currently, he serves on nonprofit and for-profit boards and is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
At the time of his passing in 1991, Meyer had a nearly complete mint set of US stamps from 1902 on, and every stamp that he could afford from the 19th Century. So he owned US1 but not US2, the Century of Progress but not the Zeppelins, and most of the other issues except the dollar-denominated stamps and the early 90-cent Washington stamps.
To honor his father’s memory, Dan resolved to “finish the collection” – starting with White Plains and the Zeppelins, then the missing 19th Century issues, and finally the Back of the Book.
Dan could not shake the idea that an Inverted Jenny would fulfill his pledge to his father. In 2003 he saw one come on the market, but decided that he needed a new car more than the stamp. (OK, the stamp would have cost more than the car!) Now he is the proud owner of No. 63, which lost its gum during the Blitz, when the vault where it was being held was doused with water to put out the flames from a Nazi bombing raid.
Dan was educated at Harvard and Oxford University. In government, he served under three Presidents, as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy and earlier as Special Assistant to the President for Nonproliferation at the National Security Council. In the private sector, he practiced law and for eight years was President and CEO of Centrus Energy Corp., where he launched the first new US production line of enriched uranium since 1954. He has published four books. His hobbies include triathlon and playing rock and roll music. Currently, he serves on nonprofit and for-profit boards and is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
