One of the perks of living in Washington, and I know I’ve mentioned it before, is access to the truly incredible National Postal Museum.  Just last week I took a morning off work to visit the Congressional Stamp Exhibition at the US Capitol, well– very near the Capitol in one of the House office buildings. Several members of congress collect stamps, including U.S. Representatives Joe Pitts (R-PA), Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI).  I’m so glad this is a bi-partisan hobby… though it’s awfully male.  Where are the female stamp collectors?

Perhaps the most unique collection belongs to a fellow Texan, Rep. Silvestre Reyes.  He specializes in anti-US propaganda stamps issued by North Korea!

More images and information after the jump…

President George W. Bush is (in)famous for giving nicknames to nearly everyone.  Apparently he referred to Rep. Gary Ackerman Sen. Levin as “Stamp Dude!”  I suppose there are far, far worse things to be called by the (then) leader of the Free World…  I also hear that Sen. Levin is considered one of the most serious collectors in Congress.

The collection of Gary Ackerman highlighted his efforts surrounding the commemorative 9/11 stamp the USPS issued in 2002.  Representative Aderholt’s collection emphasized Alabama themes.  Additionally, Rep. Sessions contributed an exhibit on the new scouting stamp.  I picked up a special cacheted and Capitol Hill-cancelled envelope at the exhibition.

A major perk at the NPM’s events is the huge vats of stamps they just give away!  I picked up quite a few for my collection and for a Swap-Bot swap I’m participating in.  I really need to decide if I want to try to collect stamps and covers… Both are so appealing and for such different reasons.  However, I fear that if I don’t pick I could easily spend a lot of time and money– er, more time and more money than I would if I just picked one.  Decisions, decisions.

*My apologies re: the quality of these photos.  All the stamps were, obviously, behind glass and the glare was just terrible thanks to some really large windows… the natural light was lovely though.  I did my best, but I assure you that these stamps are, in fact, rectangles with right angles not the weird parallelograms they might look like in these images.