Postal Museum: deaccession vs destruction

The National Postal Museum in the USA have shelved their plans to destroy over one million revenue stamps and will now sell them at auction instead.

Around 7.8 million revenue stamps were donated by the Treasury Department to the Smithsonian after they were taken out of use.

Full story here. The original concern was what the release of so many specimens would do to the collectors' market; to address that concern, the deaccessioned stamps will be countermarked before being sold.

Posted by David on January 11, 2005 8:05 AM