Bittersweet Journey to Pick up Collections of Joann and Kurt Lenz

Dealing with the collections of good friends comes with mixed emotions

First, please let me apologize for the tardiness of this post; I’ve been on the road for a few days and have not really had an opportunity to write much.

At this point in my life and career, the reality is it’s a somewhat regular occurrence to receive a call from relatives of collector friends who have died, asking me to handle their collections. In some cases the call comes within weeks; sometimes it takes longer. Either way, the families involved want to make sure that the philatelic artifacts that meant so much to my friends find new homes where they are appreciated for what they are.

Joann and Kurt Lenz.

In the case of the Lenzes (aka the “Purple Lady” and “da Grump”) there was a bit of a gap before I was able to pick up their collections; Kurt died in December 2021, and Joann passed in November 2023. Between my own serious health crisis a couple of weeks after Joann died, a health scare for their son Mark in 2024, time for him to process his own grief and finally getting a time scheduled for for me to visit that worked for both of us, their stamp and cover collections lay dormant for almost two years. I hadn’t really had an opportunity to process my personal loss of Joann and Kurt. Until now.

The roughly eight-hour drive each way gave me ample time to reflect on my longtime and close friendship with Joann and Kurt, as well as some of my other close friends who are no longer with us, and whose collections I have sold on behalf of their relatives.

I hope you’ll bear with me as I share a few thoughts about Joann and Kurt.

Without providing a full essay, I first met Joann and Kurt shortly after beginning as a “staff writer trainee” at Linn’s Stamp News in 1987. At that time, they were very involved with the Plymouth (Mich.) Stamp Show, but were not yet nationally known (nor was I). We simply shared a mutual interest in plate number coils (PNCs), purple machine cancels and modern postal history, among other things. Although Kurt regularly referred to himself as nothing more than a “philatelic secretary,” he was not only highly knowledgeable, but also did a lot of research — both for exhibits and rates for modern postal history.

Over the years, our friendship grew and deepened, and Kurt gently and frequently “mentored” me in regards to early internet security, “bad” players in the stamp world and other essential life skills. Our meetings at stamp shows became more frequent and, after I began teaching at the annual American Philatelic Society’s now-defunct Summer Seminar, they attended the week-long event almost every year (as well as several “on the road” courses). Joann and I also served several years together on the APS board of directors during a time of major transition for the organization, including securing and renovating the Match Factory and dealing with serious financial issues that threatened the long-term survival of the APS.

But it wasn’t always just about stamps. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kurt and I frequently disagreed about what constituted the best chili (as well as whether it should contain beans), and we finally agreed that the matter had to be settled once and for all.

At the 2003 APS stAmPShow (where Joann earned a silver award for an early version of The National 1¢ Letter Postage Association Labels), we decided to have a chili cookoff, and invited several others to participate as well, with the outcome to be determined by those tasters in attendance. I prepared a fantastic beanless green chili (chile verde) with mouthwatering chunks of pork, and Kurt made something that resembled “real” chili (actually, it was really good).

Unfortunately, due to improper stacking of the tasting (and voting) audience by a contingent from Cincinnati, the award was wrongly given to the spaghetti stuff that masquerades as chili there. No matter, everyone was a winner, as Kurt and Joann provided all of us “contestants” with a hot sauce pepper shirt, which we all wore on Sunday, the final day of the show. This was the genesis of the so-called “ugly shirt” day at stamp shows across the country, and each year one or two new people were “inducted” into the Ugly Shirts club.

A 2010 gathering of the Ugly Shirts, commemorated on a postcard utilizing a photostamp of the same design.

When computer-generated postage began appearing, Joann and Kurt jumped in with both feet, and it was a common occurrence for other friends and I to receive postcards or letters franked with photostamps of Hotsauceguy (me), images of friends and gatherings of the Ugly Shirts.

A Zazzle photostamp noting my then-operational hot sauce business.

Kurt was also a bit of a numismatist. At some time around this point, he realized his stash of several hundred $1 circulated silver certificates had very little value above $1. So these bills started appearing at our regular stamp show sessions of liar’s poker. Whether intentionally or not, Kurt made himself the major target of that showdown game, although he frequently came out ahead.

The ongoing game of Liar’s Poker, as commemorated on a Kurt Lenz postcard.

One of my fondest memories was sitting down with Joann and Kurt when they asked me to plan, design and mount their now multi-award-winning one-frame exhibit of test and dummy stamps. Even under the best of circumstances, preparing an exhibit is difficult work — particularly when you’re breaking new ground. We spent much time on the phone, in person and through email, throwing ideas around, deciding what should be shown and how to squeeze a viable story into a single 16-page frame.

Even once the exhibit was completed, it wasn’t “finished.” Each time it was shown, revisions had to be made, either to heed the suggestions of good philatelic judges and — occasionally — to specifically avoid some of the off-the-wall comments by judges who didn’t know the material. Helping Joann and Kurt balance conflicting edicts from jurors and keep a healthy perspective was an enjoyable and interesting process; they obviously navigated well.

During the past few years, in-person visits with Joann and Kurt at stamp shows became less and less frequent, then stopped altogether, with email and occasional phone calls sufficing.

As I neared the Detroit suburbs, a careless driver snapped me out of my reverie. Joann and Kurt’s collections were now housed on shelves in Mark’s home. I was led to the basement, where he had done a remarkable job of keeping the collections organized. As I carefully packed and loaded their material for transport back to Wisconsin, many of the brief vignettes I’ve shared here, as well as many other fond memories and time spent with good friends came flooding over me. In a way, however, this process was a bit like having an opportunity to spend just a little more time with Joann and Kurt.

Wayne Youngblood and Mark Lenz, against a backdrop of a fully van loaded from floor to ceiling with stamps and covers.

Now I’m home, the real work starts…