John Lennon Stamp Album, War Letters Among New Features on National Postal Museum Web Site

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum announced the launch of two “virtual exhibits” on the museum’s Web site and the addition of new games to the site’s “Activity Zone.”

The entire contents of John Lennon’s boyhood stamp album—including 565 stamps on more than 150 pages, the title page on which Lennon drew beards and mustaches in blue ink on the likenesses of British monarchs, the flyleaf with Lennon’s signature and other handwritten notes—can now be viewed online at postalmuseum.si.edu/john-lennon-the-lost-album. The actual album will be displayed until April 10 in the National Postal Museum exhibit “John Lennon: The Lost Album.”

The museum also launched a virtual exhibit for “War Letters: Lost and Found.” The exhibit features original letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam that were lost or abandoned and then rediscovered by strangers; visitors to the online exhibit will view images and read excerpts from the letters in the exhibit. The exhibit is a collaborative effort between the National Postal Museum and Andrew Carroll, author and founder of the Legacy Project, which provided the letters. “War Letters” will be on view at the National Postal Museum through Nov. 13. For the virtual exhibit, go to postalmuseum.si.edu/war-letters.

In addition to the virtual exhibits, five new games were added to the Web site’s “Activity Zone” section:

• Score big if you can match the faces of famous Americans on stamps in “Famous Americans.”
• In “Letter Mania,” match wits and nerve with an unforgiving keyboard to discover the letters that complete the puzzle.
• Happy hunting for hidden terms and names in “Word Search!”
• Piece together postal history with “Jigsaw Puzzles.”
• Love to solve puzzles? Check out “Scramble.”

The new games were created pro bono for the National Postal Museum. Ultimate Arcade Inc. created “Famous Americans,” “Word Search” and “Jigsaw Puzzles.” Creation Chamber created “Letter Mania” and “Scramble.”

The Activity Zone is accessible from the museum’s homepage.

The National Postal Museum is devoted to presenting the colorful and engaging history of the nation’s mail service and showcasing the largest and most comprehensive collection of stamps and philatelic material in the world. It is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave. N.E., in the Old City Post Office Building across from Union Station. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information visit the museum’s Web site at postalmuseum.si.edu.

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