Finding Guides

Catherine Lemmon Manning (1881-1957), the first woman outside the sciences to achieve the title “Assistant Curator” at the Smithsonian, tended the National Philatelic Collection for nearly thirty years.

The Hugh McLellan Southgate Papers and Documents Collection consist of 26 volumes totaling over 6,900 pages of information. Southgate was an important collector and student of the Bureau Issues of the United States. He was a founder and first president of the Philatelic Plate Number Association.

This collection of over 4,000 pages will make available to historians and collectors official documents relating to the production of United States postage stamps from 1847 to 1910.

This significant international collection was donated by Bernard Peyton to the Smithsonian national philatelic collection.

The Col. Hans Lagerloef Specialized Collection of the Aguinaldo Revolutionary Stamps consists of one album of stamps, essay and covers on 45 pages and one cream box with six folders of stamped documentary paper (papel sellos) from 1898-1900.

George H. Kaestlin, one of three remarkable philatelists to join the Rossika membership rolls, was a quiet collector, building his collection without exhibiting it or authoring articles for Rossika, nor joining the Rossica Society after WWII.

French postal markings go back a long way before the French Revolution. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, postal markings had long been standardized and the Revolution soon showed itself in postal history.

The John M. Taylor Specialized Collection of Uruguay covers the specialized early issues from 1858 – 1901, mostly singles, some postal history and Back of the Book Official overprints.

This specialized collection includes two albums of the first issues of Taiwan (Formosa) and three albums of the Chinese Treaty Ports of Chefoo, Foochow, ChinKiang, ChungKing, Hankow, IChang, Kewkiang and Nanking, and the HaiNan – Samah Land Post and Wei-Hai-Wei Courier Post.

This collection of early Chinese die proofs, engraver's models, ink drawings and essays from 1912 to 1928, was donated in 1963 by Robert Hopkins. Hopkins was the son in-law of William A Grant, one of two Americans responsible for establishing the Chinese Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

The collection was donated in two parts. The first gift, made in 1953 by Irvin Hermanoff, William Winokur, Seymour Winokur, and Lawrence Hollander, consisted of 8 volumes. Two years later, Hermanoff and the Winokur brothers made a second donation.

The specialized collection of Venezuela was anonymously donated on October 1, 1976 and on December 22, 1961. The first two albums include the early issues of Venezuela (Scott 1 – 20) and their overprints (Scott 40 - 48). These albums also include reconstructed rows and full sheets.

Jascha Heifetz, Russian-born American violinist is associated with musical perfection. He became a U.S. citizen in 1925 and toured the world giving concerts. Heifetz’s specialized collection is about anything connected with music.

The Howard H. Koslow Collection of modern U.S. stamp art consists of one box of forty-eight folders containing pre- and post-production materials for nearly every stamp Howard Koslow designed. The folders are arranged into three series.