The S_zekula Family of Stamp Dealers

Charles Sekula was born in Budapest as Karl Béla Szekula to Béla Szekula and Antónia Heller on March 30, 1910. In late 1930 he joined the management of his father’s stamp wholesale Béla Sekula, Cosmophilatelist. In 1931 he also became an authorized signatory at the Cosmophilatelist AG corporation shortly after its foundation. At the same time he was still in the Swiss army where he achieved the rank of lieutenant. After abusing a number of (sick) recruits who didn’t perform to his satisfaction in March 1932 he was sentenced to 10 days confinement. Subsequently, he concentrated on a civilian career in the stamp trade. In 1935 he married Elsa Keller (1915–1989) in London. In January 1936 Charles founded the Metropol Briefmarken AG (Metropol Stamps Ltd.), taking over stamps worth Fr. 7500 from his own holdings in exchange for equivalent shares in the company. In the same year the couple moved to New York. In 1937, Charles merged the Metropol Stamps Limited and its American branch office into the Intercity Stamp Company, Port Washington, New York. On December 17, 1941, his son Jeffrey Charles was born. In 1947, the family and the company moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. On September 15, 1952, Charles and Elsa had their second child, daughter Anne Marie. With another mouth to feed, the stamp trade alone probably did not bring in enough to support the family. In any case, Charles started taking on other jobs for a while, at least for a time during the 1950s. For example, from the summer of 1952 he was manager of the La Posada restaurant in Santa Fe, and later he worked as secretary-treasurer of the Basic Matericals Inc. With his Intercity Stamp Company he was nevertheless continuously active as a stamp dealer until at least the early 1980s. Charles Chas Sekula died in Knoxville, Tennessee, on July 25, 1996, at the age of 86.
Unlike his father, Charles Sekula seems to have developed a real interest in stamps: In his obituary he was called a Santa Fe philatelist since 1947.