The Postal History Foundation is the coolest place that I'd never heard of before a few weeks ago. L.W.A. Member David sent in this write up and these amazing pictures of the Tucson, Arizona based museum and post office.
David writes:
"I recently moved from Illinois to Tucson, Arizona, and today I visited a place here in Tucson that my father told me about. I’m not sure how he found out about it, especially since he lives in California and has never been here and does not use computers, but here it is: the
Postal History Foundation.
The Postal History Foundation is kind of hard to describe, because it’s such an unusual operation. I expected that it would be principally a museum. They do have some interesting postal stuff, including antique mailboxes, post office boxes, rubber stamps, canceling machines, carrier bags, and other stuff. This is all housed in an intact 1890s vintage postal counter which was the post office for Naco, Arizona, a border town. When it was in use, this counter, which was/is fully enclosed, was inside a Wells Fargo office in Naco.
Their main operation, however, is receiving thousands upon thousands of donated stamps from all over the world, including large collections which are donated, presumably when a collector has died. They have a large open office area where volunteers soak & remove stamps, sort them, and assemble them into packets. Some stamps are resold, often by the pound, at far below Scott Catalogue values, but most of them are assembled into kits with curriculum materials for children. They send these “Youth Education thru Stamps” packets out to teachers all around the US and the world. They also host field trips, distribute stamp collecting albums to youth, do scout badges, and hold an annual stamp design contest. These youth & children’s programs are free of charge, supported by donations and sales of high value stamps.
They also sell US stamps, mint, never hinged, at 75% of the Scott Catalogue value. I bought a few things myself. They are happy to let buyers browse through the binders and binders and binders of stamps.
Across a breezeway, they have another building, purpose-built after they received a large charitable bequest in the 90s, which houses the Peggy Slusser Memorial Library, which has her considerable collection of Civil War books, as well as thirty thousand volumes on philately and postal history. Interns from the University of Arizona Liibrary Science program assist with maintaining the collection. They have a lovely reading room for research and field trip groups. They also use this room to host talks and events around stamp releases. They recently had a big party to celebrate the Star Trek 50th Anniversary stamp release.
As if this were not enough, they also run a Contract Postal Unit Post Office, with full service and they are happy to hand cancel. The lady who runs it is very friendly. They sell ALL of the current issues, and are the only philatelic postal unit in all of Arizona. The hours for the Post Office and the entire facility are limited - 8 AM to 2:30 PM Monday through Friday. (The library is open until 3.)
This organization is run principally by senior citizens who are doing their best to get young people interested in stamp collecting. A very friendly man named Paul showed me around and was very helpful. He showed me just about every square inch of the place and was enthused to have a visitor. It is a very curious and interesting place, and the amount of painstaking effort these volunteers put into it is amazing."
More pictures can be found on David's
Flickr page. This place sounds so wonderful. The bit about selling stamps is just icing on a very, very delicious cake. I know we have a number of Tucson-area members and I think you'd all love the Postal History Foundation. Do check them out and tell them the L.W.A. and David sent you!
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