Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions

One of today's youngest and most vibrant professional philatelists, David Coogle is one of the few remaining vocational stamp dealers. He got his start at the age of 8 when his father, an immigrant barber by trade, attended coin shows on weekends. David's father collected everything, but coins did not hold David's interests. At age 13 he helped his father acquire a U.S. stamp collection and was instantly in the philatelic business. Attending monthly stamp shows, he fondly remembers learning philately from Pittsburgh luminaries such as Mark Hanna and Adam Bert.  In high school, David opened a mail order U.N. stamp company that did quite well, until the United Nations investment bubble burst. While restructuring his business to focus on U.S. Stamps, David attended the University of Pittsburgh. As business continued to grow, David found that he didn't have time enough to complete his course of study while focusing on customer service. In the 1990s, renowned dealer Andrew Levitt took notice of David and in 1996 he was recruited to help start the well known Nutmeg Stamp Sales mail auction firm. When Levitt retired for health reasons, Greg Manning purchased the Nutmeg brand and acquired David along with his expertise and knowledge.  Greg merged the H.R. Harmer and Nutmeg companies, and positioned David as President until the merged company's relocation to the West Coast. Having grown up in the Northeast, David, who had been friends with Stanley Richmond of Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions for almost 30 years, decided to return to his philatelic roots and, David, along with Laurence Gibson, rejuvenated DFK with an inaugural public auction in New York City in Fall 2010 that reached nearly $3,000,000.