The Canadian Postal Museum (CPM) was a museum once housed within the

Canadian Museum of Civilization The Canadian Museum of History () is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of Canada, as well as support related res ...

Gatineau Gatineau ( ; ) is a city in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, directly across from Ottawa, Ontario. Gatineau is the largest city in the Outaouais administrative region of Quebec and is also p ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. It was described by the Smithsonian Museum as being one of the five largest postal museums in the world, ranking second in annual attendance. The museum was not primarily about postage stamps, although it has a first-class collection that numbered in the tens of thousands. Rather, it presented the broader story of Canada's postal heritage, including the social and economic importance of postal communications throughout the country's history. It also explored international themes relating to postal communications.

Collections

The museum's collections included a writing desk that belonged to

Sandford Fleming Sir Sandford Fleming (January 7, 1827 – July 22, 1915) was a Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor. Born and raised in Scotland, he immigrated to colonial Canada at the age of 18. He promoted worldwide standard time zones, a prime meridian, ...

, designer of Canada's first postage stamp; Canadian and foreign letter boxes and postal uniforms; mail bags and rural mail boxes; post office signs and sorting equipment. Among the museum highlights was ''Reflections of Canada: the National Stamp Collection'', which included examples of every postage stamp ever issued in Canada. In addition to its public exhibitions, the museum had a mandate to collect, preserve and interpret material objects relating to Canada's postal heritage.

Timeline

The Canadian Postal Museum was established in 1971 and opened in 1974 as the National Postal Museum. It joined the

in 1988, adopted its current name in 1996, and moved into a permanent space in the Museum of Civilization in 1997. The museum was closed in 2012 as the Canadian Museum of Civilization began to prepare to transition into the Canadian History Museum. The Postal Museum collections, now in storage, are managed by the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, a federal Crown Corporation that is also responsible for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the

Canadian War Museum The Canadian War Museum (CWM) () is a National museums of Canada, national museum on the military history of Canada, country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military hist ...

, the Canadian Children's Museum, and the Virtual Museum of New France. The postal collection is being broken up. According to the Canadian Museum of Civilization, "Many rtifactswill be included in the new Canadian history gallery, to be completed in 2017. The national stamp collection, Reflections of Canada – The National Stamp Collection, will be moved to a new gallery, to open in 2014. Two traveling exhibitions are also being developed and will be shown at museums across the country. As well, A Chronology of Canadian Postal History and many other online exhibitions will remain on the Museum's website."

Affiliations

The museum was affiliated with CMA,

CHIN The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible (List_of_human_anatomical_regions#Regions, mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a we ...

, and the Virtual Museum of Canada. In 2000 it became a member of the Club de Monte-Carlo de l'élite de la philatélie.

References

External links

* (page not found)
The Canadian Postal Archives
{{authority control Postal Museums in Gatineau Philatelic museums Philately of Canada

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

2012 disestablishments in Quebec 1971 establishments in Quebec Museums established in 1971 Museums disestablished in 2012 Defunct museums in Canada Former education in Quebec Canadian Museum of History Corporation Library and Archives Canada

Collections

Timeline

Affiliations

See also

References

External links