Among the National Postal Museum's object collections are the types of things most people associate with postal systems: stamps, envelopes, mailbags, mail trucks, uniforms and other items that are part of the vast and varied history of the U.S. postal network.
But beyond these items that everyone would expect to see in a postal museum are some objects that raise eyebrows among the museum's staff, let alone the general public. In celebration of the National Postal Museum's fifteenth anniversary, the staff selected fifteen objects from the collection that they consider to be odd and out of the ordinary.
These quirky objects have been grouped into five categories. They are objects that have been used to carry or mark mail, objects that have traveled through the mail stream, and those worn by mail carriers. Finally, two of these items reveal a connection between animals and the mail.
Created by Nancy A. Pope, National Postal Museum
