The Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum is a museum of stamps and postal history that you can visit in Weston, Massachusetts with your New England car hire. Their mission is to be a center of learning and activities for people of all ages and to preserve, enhance, and expand its collections, library, and facilities as a philatelic trust; they are also dedicated to promoting the hobby of stamp collecting and to be a resource for historians.

Museum history

When you are here with your New England car for hire, you may learn the museum was founded in 1960 from he collections of Cardinal Spellman (Archbishop of New York) and the National Philatelic Museum of Philadelphia. The collection now has over 2 million items in their collection and is one of two public museums in the United States that is devoted to stamps and postal history (the other is the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.). The Spellman Museum is supported by grants, membership, admission fees, and annual contributions.

Activities available

When you are here with your car hire New England, there are plenty of activities for you and your family to enjoy. There are exhibitions featuring philatelic rarities, the United States collection, and an international collection. There is an activity center that includes geography and art projects, stamp identification, an stamp catalogues. There is a Stamp Hunt available, and there are packets of free stamps from a 19th century post office for kids 16 and under.

Stamp collections

When you are here with your car for hire in New England, you will find there are a number of special stamp exhibits on display. One of them is a collection from the family of the late John E. Giles of Weston, who was a long-time supporter of the museum. He had a large collection, but unique to t was the Zeppelin collection, which were stamps issued for use on regular and special flights of the German airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg, as well as stamps issued to commemorate their development of flight. There is also the First Tagged Stamp, 1948, which is a special property given to a stamp so they can be read by automated cancelling and sorting machines. When the sorting machines were being built and tested, special test stamps were also created to test the machines.

Services for collectors

When you are here with your New England car for hire, you might want to look into the services that the museum provides for collectors. They have a significant library dedicated to stamp collection and postal history that is open during the museum’s public hours. They also offer some of the material that is not on exhibit for viewing for a fee. You will need to email them to find out if this is possible. You can also have a private consultation on your own stamp collection about the quality, condition, and rarity of your collection to help you decide what to do with your collection.

Plan your visit

The museum is open Thursday through Sunday from noon until 5 p.m. They are closed on Sundays in July and August. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for seniors and students. Children under 16 and members are free. You might also want to check out their schedule online for any special events that might be coming up when you plan to visit with your New England car hire.

When you are here with your New England car hire, you will find the Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum is a great place to learn about stamp collections and postal history.