The Smithsonian National Postal Museum a house of Postal history and philately.

The Museum is dedicated to the preservation, study and presentation of postal history and philately.

Today lets have a tour of Smithsonian National Postal Museum to learn more about postal history, stamp collecting and philately.

History of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

The National Postal Museum was established through a joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution and opened in 1993.

The Museum is located in the historic City Post Office Building, constructed in 1914 and served as the Washington, D.C., post office from 1914 through 1986.

The building was designed by the Graham and Burnham architectural firm, which was led by Ernest Graham following the death of Daniel Burnham in 1912.

The Museum occupies 100,000 square feet of the building with 35,000 square feet devoted to exhibition space. The Museum also houses a 6,000-square-foot research library, a stamp store and a museum shop.

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum houses one of the largest and most significant philatelic and postal history collections in the world and one of the world’s most comprehensive library resources on philately and postal history.

The museum houses many interactive displays about the history of the United States Postal Service and of mail service around the world.

The museum atrium has a 90-foot-high ceiling with three vintage airmail planes suspended overhead, a reconstructed railway mail car, an 1851 stagecoach, a 1931 Ford Model A postal truck and a contemporary Long Life Vehicle postal truck.

National Postal Museum Highlights

There are lots of stuff to explore at the museum starting from postal history, stamps collecting, philately, air mail and rail mail from colonial times to the present.

Just a few highlights of what you can see in the museum.

– The Wiseman-Cooke Airplane
– The Stinson Reliant Airplane
– Railway Service Car
– Highway PO. Mail
– Concord-Style Mail Coach
– Pneumatic Mail Canister
– etc….

Museum Tours

National Postal Museum facilitates various types of tours to visit the museum.

# GROUP TOURS

You can schedule a Museum Highlights Tour in advance for a group of 10 or more.

Highlights Tours can be scheduled at 11:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m., Monday-Friday and is approximately an hour long.

# DROP-IN TOURS

Museum Introductory tours are offered to walk-in visitors at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

# SELF-GUIDED TOURS

Self-guided groups may visit the Museum any date or time.

Brochures, including a map of the Museum galleries, and information about highlights of the Museum’s exhibitions, are available in a kiosk.

Museum Virtual Tour

Visiting the museum is one of the best experience but anyway if you are not able to visit physically no need to worry.

Smithsonian National Postal Museum official website provides the amazing virtual tour to the Museum in the comfort of your home.

Yes, you heard it right you can virtually visit the museum.

The 360-degree panoramas on the website lead you through the galleries of the museum.

You can use the map to move from place to place, you can zoom in and out, you can visit Stamp gallery, Stamp store, Museum shop and much more…

Museum Video Tour

Smithsonian National Postal Museum also provides a video tour of some of its best exhibits.

You can watch a small introductory video about the National Postal Museum.

A video about the ‘Binding the Nation‘ and ‘Customers and Communities‘ exhibit is also available.

You can visit Video tour at Postal Museum Website.

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Information Source Smithsonian Institution

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