Dr William C Bowers

You were born, sir, we believe, in the year 1851, so at the present time are 57 years of age, and possess one of the five best collections in the United States. The foundation of this collection was laid when you were only eleven years of age, and consisted of eight stamps. Your philatelic education then appears to have been neglected for the more serious calls of life. You graduated at Yale College with an A.B. in 1874, and obtained your degree of M.D. in 1877, which was conferred by the Columbia Medical College of New York.

Although your collection during these busy and eventful years was not entirely laid aside, yet it necessarily suffered, but after you settled down at Bridgport in 1879 to commence the practice which you have carried on with so much success ever since, you have been most assiduous in acquiring all the philatelic gems which from time to time have fallen in your way. At the London Exhibition of 1897 you were a successful exhibitor, gaining a Bronze Medal for New South Wales, and also a Special Medal for having the best collection of Sydney Views.

Your collection is a general one, and includes specimens of all the great rarities, excepting the Post Office Mauritius and the two rarest British Guiana. It is vouchsafed to few to possess so great and varied an assortment of really rare stamps, but it must not be overlooked that at the time you commenced collecting, the greatest rarities were to be acquired at prices very different from those ruling to-day. At that time the same attention was not paid to the question of condition, and although in this respect you seem to have anticipated to a certain extent the trend of future events by being much more particular than your fellow collectors upon this point, yet such is the stride which has been made in the philatelic mind on this question, that many of your specimens unfortunately do not come up to the present day standard. Upon the whole, however, you have an exceedingly fine and most interesting collection.

A book has recently been published, the first of a series, dealing exclusively with your stamps in a manner which is both instructive and interesting, and testifies more than anything we can say to the high esteem in which you are held by contemporary American writers.

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