Finding Guides

On March 31, 1960, Mrs. Margaret Tittmann donated the collection to the Smithsonian Institution. It was catalogued as 5,413 objects. Included are stamps issued between 1913 – 1914, with many types, varieties and usages. It is one of the Museum’s finest international collections.

The Bernard Peyton Collection consists of 13 volumes of stamps, proofs, essays and covers from Peru from 1779 - 1897.

The collection was donated in two parts to the museum by Francis A. Shafer. Two albums were donated in 1960 and one in 1964.

In April 1926, the Survey Department, a government agency in Cairo, took over the printing of Egyptian stamps. One sheet of each stamp printed by the Survey Department was sent to the Royal Collection.

Stamps of Colombia from 1859 to 1910 including the states of Bogota, Antioquia, Bolivar, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Panama, Santander and Tolima.

The name ‘John Heinmuller’ is famous among those studying early airmail. Heinmuller was an aero-philatelist and a past president of the American Air Mail Society. He officiated for the 1927 Lindbergh transatlantic flight and other pioneer flights.

Most of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s holdings of Liberian philately are not organized as such. Rather, they are scattered throughout multiple collections transferred by the U.S.

This series of the Republic of Panama stamps was issued late 1906, early 1907. It was Panama’s first portrait series and was engraved and printed by the Hamilton Bank Note Company of New York. The ornate frames and colors of each value differ, but the portraits in the center of all are black.

The Specialized Collections of El Salvador consist of three volumes of the John M. Taylor Collection, three volumes of the Charles S. Hamilton Collection, the J & H Stolow Album of the First Airmail Issue, and two volumes from the Michel Postal Stationery of the World Collection.