The Museum has created research guides for collections that are frequently accessed or that have additional research potential. These guides provide concise descriptions of the scope and content, provenance and list of materials for each collection.
L. W. Christenson donated the specialized 4-volume specialized collection of Japan the 1-sen blue postage stamp of 1872 in 1960. There are a total of 1,156 objects in these volumes.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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 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.
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.
Mr. B.H. Homan of New York, New York, donated this 46-page album of New South Wales proofs to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History and Technology on December 19, 1957.
