14-09-2025, 04:41 PM
I was delighted to find an unused stamp album from Captain Tim’s Stamp Collectors Club at the Brockville Vintage Paper Show. Captain Tim hosted a radio show on NBC, sponsored by Ivory Soap. You could send in soap wrappers to get stamps from the H.E. Harris Stamp Company.
Captain Tim was inducted into the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame. This is his entry on the APS website:
Reginald Stafford Healy (Captain Tim Healy)
(1892 - 1947)
Reginald Stafford Healy was born in Sydney, Australia in 1892. He fought through World War I with the Australian Army and was part of the Allied forces at Gallipoli.
Reginald Healy came to the United States to learn the oil business in Texas. There, he met his future wife, Margaret, a schoolteacher, and they moved from Gainesville, Texas to New York Coty, where he ran the financial side of a small oil company.
The business collapsed in 1929, and after that, he did whatever he could to survive, his son recalled, including sweeping streets. For a time, he had a radio show called “Captain Tim's Stamp Club of the Air” on NBC. Healy used his son’s name as his on-air personality.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ellis Harris partnered with the consumer products firm Procter and Gamble to produce a radio show using “Captain Tim” to sell stamps. For a small price (and a couple of box tops from some Ivory Snow detergent), a person could be a stamp collector. Another Harris insight was that collectors not only needed stamps, but they needed a low-priced series of albums to put them in. The radio show that Harris produced and hosted by “Captain Tim” Healy, offered not only stamps but a small album to put them in. Captain Tim’s albums were produced in the millions.
Thanks to Captain Tim’s exciting tales of battle and stamps, thousands, young and old, joined the rank of collector.”
You can hear a sample show from 1939 on YouTube. Content includes a discussion of how the “war in Europe” is affecting stamp prices:
https://youtu.be/aZ1sz-vu4Xg?si=k3YPJAgE9SpWWujR
The album is about the size of a very thick comic book. What a great find!
Captain Tim was inducted into the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame. This is his entry on the APS website:
Reginald Stafford Healy (Captain Tim Healy)
(1892 - 1947)
Reginald Stafford Healy was born in Sydney, Australia in 1892. He fought through World War I with the Australian Army and was part of the Allied forces at Gallipoli.
Reginald Healy came to the United States to learn the oil business in Texas. There, he met his future wife, Margaret, a schoolteacher, and they moved from Gainesville, Texas to New York Coty, where he ran the financial side of a small oil company.
The business collapsed in 1929, and after that, he did whatever he could to survive, his son recalled, including sweeping streets. For a time, he had a radio show called “Captain Tim's Stamp Club of the Air” on NBC. Healy used his son’s name as his on-air personality.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ellis Harris partnered with the consumer products firm Procter and Gamble to produce a radio show using “Captain Tim” to sell stamps. For a small price (and a couple of box tops from some Ivory Snow detergent), a person could be a stamp collector. Another Harris insight was that collectors not only needed stamps, but they needed a low-priced series of albums to put them in. The radio show that Harris produced and hosted by “Captain Tim” Healy, offered not only stamps but a small album to put them in. Captain Tim’s albums were produced in the millions.
Thanks to Captain Tim’s exciting tales of battle and stamps, thousands, young and old, joined the rank of collector.”
You can hear a sample show from 1939 on YouTube. Content includes a discussion of how the “war in Europe” is affecting stamp prices:
https://youtu.be/aZ1sz-vu4Xg?si=k3YPJAgE9SpWWujR
The album is about the size of a very thick comic book. What a great find!
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