This section contains a short history of the Civil War Philatelic Authentication Service.
AS History
The Civil War Philatelic Authentication Service (AS) was founded on October 1, 1945 as the Confederate Stamp Alliance Authentication Committee.
In the early years no certificates were issued. Instead opinions were rendered in the form of a letter. It wasn’t until 2 March 1967 that there is a record of a certificate (00153). Even then there are gaps in the record before certificate 00170 was issued on 26 February 1968. In late 1989 the numbering sequence for certificates skipped the block of numbers 01900-01999.
Items were photographed irregularly in the beginning. It wasn’t until 17 June 1974 (certificate 00465) that each item was consistently photographed. Since that date the Authentication Service has maintained a complete record of all items, to include the certificate and photographs or scanned images. To date the Authentication Service has rendered an opinion on over 5,900 items.
In 2007, a project began to digitize the records of the Authentication Service. Today over 2,700 records have been digitized. All certificates since 2000 are searchable.
In 2006, the name was changed to the Confederate Stamp Alliance Authentication Service to better reflect the purpose of the group.
In 2020, the name was changed to the Civil War Philatelic Authentication Service at the same time the organization name was changed from Confederate Stamp Alliance to Civil War Philatelic Society.
