The Benjamin K. Miller Collection is a unique collection of

stamps Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to: Official documents and related impressions * Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail * Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods * Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...

and other

philatelic Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possibl ...

materials donated to the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

in 1925 by Milwaukee attorney Benjamin Kurtz Miller (1857–1928). This collection has been considered the first complete collection of U.S. stamps ever assembled. His collection is known as the "crown jewels" of U.S. stamp collecting for its rare holdings, depth, and variety. Miller's collection was not complete, missing some stamps then listed by Scott.''A Sharp Eye on collecting US Classics'' (Sharp Photography Publications, 2021) ASIN B091MBTGJ7 (read online)

One cent Z Grill

Of the great rarities and philatelic items in the collection is the One-Cent Z Grill, one of the rarest of all U.S. stamps. Only two copies of this stamp are known to exist; the other copy is in the collection of Bill Gross.

Background

Benjamin Kurtz Miller was born in 1857, the son of a Milwaukee lawyer and grandson of one of the first federal judges in Wisconsin. He joined his father’s firm in 1877 and later became a partner, retiring in 1906 to pursue personal interests. The firm continues today through its successor, the major U.S. law firm Foley & Lardner.

The collection

Miller built his collection a little late in life at the age of 61. He started stamp collecting seriously on a large scale only after 1918, when he bought one of the famous

Inverted Jenny The Inverted Jenny (also known as an Upside Down Jenny, Jenny Invert) is a 24 cent United States postage stamp first issued on May 10, 1918, in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design is printed upside-down; it is ...

stamps at the age of 61. Later he intensified his collecting, by writing articles in stamp journals and purchasing from up to 30 dealers. By the early 1920s, Miller was on the way to his ultimate achievement: collecting one example of every U.S. postage stamp in the

Scott catalogue The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Company, now a subsidiary of Amos Media, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the world that its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in f ...

of his day. He also collected varieties like color shades, frauds and forgeries, fresh unused stamps, and varied cancellations. Miller also enjoyed plating stamps, seeking one copy for each position on a printing plate.

The display

The collection was displayed at the library for more than 50 years. However it was locked away after a theft of 153 of its rarest stamps in 1977. Even though 81 of the stamps were later recovered (some of them mutilated to disguise their provenance) the library did not put the collection back on display. It returned to public view when the

National Postal Museum The National Postal Museum, located in Washington, D.C., is the primary postal museum of the United States. It covers large portions of the postal history of the United States and other countries. It was established through joint agreement be ...

put it on display in two parts in from 27 May 2006 to 1 October 2007, and in 2007 from 5 November to 12 January 2009.

Recognition

In recognition of Miller's philatelic accomplishments and scholarship, the

Royal Philatelic Society The Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) is the oldest philatelic society in the world. It was founded on 10 April 1869 as ''The Philatelic Society, London''. The society runs a postal museum, the Spear Museum of Philatelic History, at its he ...

upgraded his status from "member" to "fellow".

References

External links

The Benjamin K. Miller Collection
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Benjamin Kurtz Philatelic museums in the United States Lawyers from Milwaukee New York Public Library Philately of the United States 19th-century American lawyers