Dr Edric Druce has been a keen stamp collector since 1947 and a philatelist since he was in his thirties, having served the philatelic community for the past twenty years. He is best known as a Postal Historian and has put together several major collections and exhibits. Best known is his ‘New South Wales’ which has been awarded Large Gold medals at world exhibitions and won the ‘Champion of Champions’ Class for the decade 1985-1994 at Canberra in 1996.   This exhibit was displayed in the Court of Honour at both Sydpex 88 and Taipei 93.

He is also a keen postal stationery collector and has put together world class exhibits in that class as well as Thematics and Aerophilately. He has won Australian Grand Prix for Postal History, Postal Stationery and Aerophilately and best in class for Thematics, One Frame exhibits and Frugal Philately.   A wide range of collecting interests typifies Ed’s approach to the hobby. Many of these collections have been turned into high award winning exhibits such as New South Wales Postal Stationery (Gold), British Colonies Aerophilately (Large Vermeil), The Story of the Earth (Large Silver), Canberra Monaro Region (Social Philately) and Tonga (Frugal Philately). Dr Druce has displayed various collections extensively including to the Philatelic Society of Canberra, Philatelic Society of Queensland, Philatelic Society of New South Wales, Royal Philatelic Society of Victoria, Tasmanian Society, Philatelic Society of South Australia, and the Western Australia Study Group.  He has also displayed to the Toronto Philatelic Society, and the Philatelic Specialists Society of Toronto and the Postal History Society of the UK.

Dr Druce has spent much of his time in supporting and developing organised philately in the Canberra region, at the national level and internationally. He is a long standing member, and former President of the Philatelic Society of Canberra as well as a member and former President of the ACT Philatelic Council. He is a past (and inaugural) president of the Australian Philatelic Federation and former International Officer of that organisation.  He is a national and international judge (Postal History and Youth) and also is a Bureau member of the Postal History Commission.

He has run training courses in philately and particularly postal history in the ACT and other Australian states and territories as well as in China, Indonesia, New Zealand, Canada and Taiwan. He introduced Judges training programs in the ACT and at National level and introduced a Commissioners’ training program for national commissioners. In the ACT he has assisted in running Schools of Philately, exhibiting courses and judges courses. He was guest speaker at the Australian Stamp Dealers Association inaugural international convention. Dr Druce was in inaugural member of the Australian Philatelic Judges register and is a qualified team leader in Postal History, Postal Stationery, Thematics, Social Philately, Revenues, Literature and Youth Philately. He was Chairman of the Jury at Sunpex 85, AUSTAMP 90, Melbourne 91, Canberra 94 and several state shows in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  He has also judged at New Zealand exhibitions and the Canadian Nationals Royal Hamilton 90 and Calgary 97. Dr Druce is a qualified FIP Judge in Postal History, Postal Stationery and Youth Philately. He has judged at the following FIAP shows: Adelaide 1986, Surabaya 1994, Taipa 96 and Hong Kong 97 and FIP exhibitions: Praga 88, Brasiliana 94, Capex 96 and Indonesia 96 and Indepex 97.

Few people can claim that they were responsible for the establishment of new exhibiting classes. Dr Druce founded two new classes of competitive philately, Social and Frugal, both of which were first trialled at Canberra exhibitions.   Social Philately is an experimental class at Australia 99.