18 October 2024
Museums

Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Jenniferby Jennifer

While neither of us is into stamp collecting (Doug gave up the hobby decades ago), we and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum were both right in the area, so we went in for a meander.

The museum has lots of exhibits and a variety of historical items on display, including a current exhibit on baseball that had nothing to do with postage stamps (but perhaps everything to do with a postmaster with an interest in the game).

Mail crime, stamp fraud, major disasters, and printing mistakes are all covered. Who knew the postage museum would be so full of drama!

America’s postal history is presented, from how it got started to how it gets delivered.  The museum has nearly six million items in its collection, only a fraction of which is thankfully on display.

One of the world’s most famous printing errors is the upside-down airplane on this 1918 stamp. Only one sheet of 100 was sold.
This shows the stages of printing the Lewis & Clark stamp – overlays of cyan, yellow, magenta and black, plus beige, not pictured.
It doesn’t seem possible that the individual stages pictured add up to this final product!
Free stamps, please limit yourself to six, said the sign. I think “thank goodness we live in a van and we can’t take anything.” A few minutes later, where could Doug be? Getting six stamps for him and six for me, of course. How had I not realized the van needed a stamp collection?
Here the starter stamp collection that Doug assembled at the Museum. He calls it “Notorious Slaveholders of American History.” (We may been spending too much time in the South.) It’s a good thing he respected the limit to the number of free stamps he could select, otherwise the collection would have been a great deal bigger.
The first ever postage stamp, the Penny Black, issued by Great Britain in 1840. Prior to that, the recipient paid the fee (who might refuse to do so), and the price varied by distance. The Penny Black was of course purchased by the sender, and the fee was standardized. It was very popular, and the use of the postal system soared.
America didn’t issue its first stamps until 1847, featuring Ben Franklin (5 cents) and George Washington (10 cents), naturally.
Johnstown, Penn., was nearly destroyed during a terrible flood in 1889; this is a mailbox remnant salvaged from the aftermath. Doug and I toured the museum and visited related sites earlier this year.
This piece of mail was salvaged from the Hindenburg crash. The crash happened just a few miles from where my parents currently live in New Jersey, and we went on a tour to the site and museum last year.
Revenue stamps issued by the Union to raise funds to help finance the Civil War.
The engraving die shown on the right for the Grandma Moses stamp result on the left.
It’s hard to fathom how long it took to send mail back in the day. Imagine sending a letter across country via stagecoach! This Concord-style coach is from 1851.
A big exhibit on “Baseball: America’s Home Run,” including all of the postage stamps released over time that celebrate the game.

Jennifer

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