Роберт Зоэллнер: Американдық филателист және толық коллекция иесі

American philatelist (1932–2014)
Robert Emil Zoellner (April 26, 1932 – December 23, 2014) was an American investor and stamp collector who was the second person to have formed a complete collection of United States postage stamps, following Benjamin K. Miller, who had assembled a complete collection pre 1925.

Zoellner was born on April 26, 1932, in Irvington, New Jersey, to parents Emil John Zoellner and Anna Elizabeth Morton. Raised in what is now known as Elmwood Park, New Jersey (then East Paterson), Zoellner graduated from Lodi High School in 1950. Following his military service, Zoellner went into the investment field, establishing the firm of E. J. Roberts in 1958 before joining Edwards & Hanly, a firm that named him in 1964 as its managing partner.

Like many philatelists Zoellner collected stamps as a child and had attempted to fill his entire stamp album of United States stamps. However, many US stamps are quite rare, and he eventually put the album aside. His interest was rekindled in 1984, and in 1985 he approached Scott Trepel of Siegel Auctions and asked whether it was possible to assemble a complete collection. At the time all of the major grill rarities were coming on the market and Zoellner had both the "means and the inclination" (to quote the Weill brothers) to obtain them. He purchased the 1 cent Z grill, the rarest US stamp, in November 1986 for $418,000, setting a new record for a US stamp sale. In addition to singles of each type, Zoellner also bought strips, blocks, and covers. Since his original album had no spaces for these, he moved to a system of computer generated pages designed for the additional items. By 1996, only a few spaces remained to be filled. Zoellner accepted an invitation to exhibit the collection at Anphilex '96 and scrambled to complete the collection. The last stamp he acquired was the 30c gray black stamp of 1873, given as a gift by one of Zoellner's friends. On October 8–10, 1998, the entire collection was auctioned off. Siegel's auction catalog was a 391 page work that included extensive description and documentation of the items, many of which were the "finest known" of their type, and sold for prices well above their nominal values. The 1c Z grill went to Donald Sundman of Mystic Stamp Company for $935,000.