Thursday, July 11, 2019

30,000: the Ultimate Post Office Photo Collection Keeps Growing

Three years ago I introduced readers of this blog to the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s Online Post Office Photo Project. The Post Mark Collectors Club operates the National Postmark Museum in Bellevue, Ohio, and among its unparalleled collections is a catalogued cabinet with 60,000 printed post office photographs. The images span all 50 states, and even all U.S. counties.

As I detailed in this thorough write-up three years ago, the PMCC's digital collection of post office photographs has been expanding at an unprecedented clip. With 30,000 catalogued photos, there is no comparable collection anywhere in the world. No other institution—neither the U.S. Postal Service, National Postal Museum, Library of Congress, National Archives, nor Smithsonian Institution, manages anything like it. As of this writing images in our collection have garnered more than 3.7 million hits.

All 50 states are represented by more than 100 post office photographs; 21 states feature at least 500 photos; and five states (NY, IL, PA, TX, CA) boast more than 1,000 images. Additionally, each of the 55 darkest green counties on this heat map is represented by at least 50 photos.

Post office photograph heat map

Photo #30,000 was this photo of the Community Post Office in Nanwalek, Alaska. I was fortunate to visit all the post offices on the Kenai Peninsula back in 2016, and wrote about the adventures on this blog in this four-part series.

Nanwalek, AK Community Post Office

Please refer to this post for FAR more additional information about the project, as well as contributing new images.

Viewing the Collection
The PMCC Online Post Office Photo Collection homepage is:
http://www.postmarks.org/photos/

Here is the link to our primary Flickr page, at which you can view all our uploads chronologically, starting with the most recent:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/postoffices/

Note: © All rights reserved. We are pleased to present these photos online, but most of these images are under copyright and may not be re-used without the respective photographers' consent. Commercial usage is prohibited without the purchase of an image license. Contact me (email address in left sidebar) and I can help sort things out for you if you're interested.