National Postmark Museum
Overview
The Museum's holdings comprise the largest single collection of postmarks in the world, with nearly two million philatelic and postal history items in all.Contact Information
7629 Homestead Dr.Baldwinsville, New York 13027
United States
Description
The Museum's holdings comprise the largest single collection of postmarks in the world, with nearly two million philatelic and postal history items in all. The Primary Collection at the PMCC National Postmark Museum and Library is estimated to contain one million covers from the United States and its related territories, spanning a range from stampless covers to the ink-jet cancels of today. It is an active collection, continuously expanding. Some items are housed in separate collections. Among these are Railway Post Offices (RPO), Highway Post Offices (HPO), military (several categories), First Day Covers (FDC), 7-1-71 covers (covers commemorating the official establishment of the U.S. Postal Service), slogan cancels, first flight covers, pictorial cancels, stamp show covers, post office dedication covers, airport dedication covers, inaugural covers, mailer's postmark permits, and a few others. There are smaller collections of material from the United Nations and Canada. An 1881 postmark from the Willett-Thompson collection [part of a full cover] The Willett-Thompson Collection, predominately older material from the 19th and early 20th centuries, is a closed collection, mounted in more than 400 protective albums. Assembled, for the most part more than sixty years ago, the Willett-Thompson collection is a reflection of the times in which it was gathered. There are pieces in this collection from post offices from which no full covers are known. The entire collection has been scanned and is available for purchase on CD or DVD here. In addition, the Museum has an extensive collection of post office photographs and post office view cards: greater than 55,000 in all. There are pictures of most currently operating post offices in the country, including many buildings which have since been replaced; pictures of many discontinued post offices; and pictures of most surviving Depression-era post office murals and other WPA art. This collection is also growing rapidly. The museum library houses more than 1,400 post office, postal history and related philatelic books, including an extensive run of Postal Guides, Post Office Directories, state post office books, and a large philatelic periodical collection.