Congressman Gary Ackerman has combined his unique stamp collection with his passion for politics.

By Aaron Rutkoff

With over two decades of service in Congress, and years of civic activism in his native city, it is clear that Gary Ackerman has put his personal stamp on the political world.

Few realize, however, that over a career full of diplomatic missions to international hotspots and meetings with global leaders, Congressman Ackerman made a hobby of collecting stamps everywhere he goes.

The result is a most unusual stamp collection locked away in a safe place – one in which riveting political anecdotes lurk behind every piece of postage.

The Start Of It All
As with most aspects of Ackerman’s life, the very drive to collect stamps started as an outgrowth of his passion for politics. His hobby did not begin again until his term in office, when the U.S. Postal Service chose to honor the 100th Congress with a series of stamps.

Intrigued by the series and seeking a unique memento from his first term in office, Ackerman purchased enough First Day Covers – collectable envelopes with an unused stamp, postmarked on the first day of a stamp’s release – to have every member of Congress autograph one.

“I got every member of the House, I got the sergeant-at-arms, I got the post master, the clerk of the House, the House parliamentarian and the chaplain,” Ackerman recalled. “Then I did the same thing in the Senate.”

In the end of the process, his unusual form of stamp collecting led to a rare feat: “I’m sure I’m the only member of the House who actually met every member and asked for their autograph,” Ackerman said.

Conquering The World
From the seat of national power, Ackerman and his stamps set out to conquer the world. “In my committee, I get to meet a lot of world leaders,” admitted one of the ranking Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee. “And I said, I’m going to start [collecting].”

He began accumulating First Day Covers from every nation that he visited, and brought the collectibles around to summits with foreign dignitaries and meetings with heads of state. Today, the collection has grown to hundreds of signatures from some the most powerful history-makers of the 20th century.

Above all else, Ackerman seems to relish securing the signatures of implacable political foes on the same First Day Cover, an inclination that creates one-of-a-kind political artifacts and a ton of interesting tales.

Russian leaders and sometime rivals Boris Yeltsin and Michael Gorbachev signed the same cover. As did South African Prime Minister F.W. de Clerk and his successor and rival Nelson Mandela.

“De Clerk signed it while Mandela was in jail,” Ackerman remembered. “Then Mandela got out of jail.” When presented with the cover bearing the autograph of leader who presided over his imprisonment, Mandela at first declined to take Ackerman’s pen. Then Mandela pulled a large Mount Blanc from his coat pocket. “I will sign with a bigger pen to intimidate him,” Mandela told Ackerman with a smile.

Stamping Out The Middle East
Ackerman acquired a cover bearing a Palestinian Authority stamp commemorating the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and President Bill Clinton – and he got all three men to autograph it.

Over years of official travel among the capitals of the Middle East, Ackerman rates Syrian ruler Hafiz al-Asad as the hardest signature to secure. Eventually, Ackerman met the reclusive leader on a mission to ask for the release of several Israeli captives. Asad did not release the Israelis, “but he did sign the cover,” Ackerman said.

In addition to Syria’s Asad, that one cover carries the signatures of five Israeli premiers, Hosni Mumbarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Clinton – a collection of leaders who shaped the modern Middle East and defined the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict, all on one First Day Cover.

Few fellow stamp collectors have crossed paths with Ackerman during his travels in the halls of power around the world, though many become interested in his unusual collection. The one exception, however, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, had a sad story.

“She told me when she was younger, her father had given her a wonderful collection, and she had collected as a young girl,” Ackerman said. “But her father, who was also prime minister, was killed and they looted her house and the collection was lost.”

For A Good Cause
Ackerman took his love of stamp collecting to the floor of the United States House of Representatives on Sept. 17, 2001, when he introduced legislation to create a stamp honoring those lost on Sept. 11.

The Sept. 11 Heroes Stamp Act of 2001 was eventually passed, and required the United States Postal Service to unveil a stamp honoring rescue workers at Ground Zero. The stamp – which Ackerman helped unveil with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office in 2002 – costs 45 cents, with the extra 11 cents going to charities for the families of those lost in the tragic World Trade Center attacks.

The stamp portrayed three firefighters – including one from Queens – raising a flag over the rubble at Ground Zero.
When Bush and Ackerman unveiled the stamp, Bush learned of the Queens Congressman’s stamp collecting hobby, and dubbed him “the stamp dude.”

Crown Jewel
The crowning item in Ackerman’s collection stems from his historic visit to the Korean peninsula in 1993, where he became one of the only people to ever cross the heavily fortified boundary between North and South Korea.

That day began in the North, where Kim Il Sung had signed a cover. After Ackerman strode across the DMZ, he asked to be taken to a post office, where he had the same cover inked with a South Korean postmark – the only piece of postage to make it from north to south in one day.

Then, to complete the artifact, Ackerman asked the president of South Korea to sign. “I pointed out that the President North Korea had signed it, and he handed it right back to me,” Ackerman said. “So I made a pitch saying that hopefully one day, they would be signing documents together reunifying the peninsula.” The pitch worked.

With hundred of autographs and thousands of stamps under his belt, Ackerman has set one historic goal for his collection. A dedicated supporter of Israel who has spent much time focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ackerman wants to see the day when an independent Palestinian state issues its first piece of international postage.

“I want the first prime minister of Palestine that is at peace with Israel,” Ackerman said.