Stamporama has found that we have lost another member: Gerben van Gelder (swh), who passed away December 31st, 2016. Gerben was a regular contributor in the Discussion Boards during his short 2 1/2 years on Stamporama.
The link below contains more information about Gerben, and the philatelic legacy and gift he left collectors.
Always sad to lose a serious stamp collector. I have been in a stamp club over 40 years and we had men and women who were veritable storehouses of philatelic information. They related much of this to us in programs they gave at meetings. But so much more is lost forever !
Gerben dedicated what turned out to be his final years to creating a wonderful encyclopaedia of philatelic knowledge on his website stampworldhistory.com. As of now, it is uncertain what will happen to the website. His family decided to keep it online for a while, but it is unknown if that is one year, more years or... So take a look while you still can and be amazed of the wealth of information gathered about almost every country that once issued stamps.
The site, http://www.stampworldhistory.com/, is definitely a real asset for learning something about the background of stamp issuing entities which should be preserved (and development continued).