William H. Gross, a founder of PIMCO investment firm and a renowned philatelist, has donated $10 million to the National Postal Museum to create a new 12,000-square-foot gallery that will be named in his honor. The sale of his Confederate States’ Postmasters’ Provisionals collection and his British North America collection supported the NPM expansion. In addition to supporting the National Postal Museum, he generously supports other concerns and interests. For instance, he donated the proceeds from the sale of his extraordinary Great Britain (2007), Scandinavia (2008), and British Empire (2008) collections to support education, women’s health concerns, social and health issues in Africa, Doctors Without Borders, and the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute. Further, by trading a plate block of the “Inverted Jenny” airmail stamps for one of the two existing 1-cent 1868 “Z Grill” stamps, Gross completed his collection of nineteenth century U.S. stamps, an accomplishment achieved only twice before (by Benjamin K. Miller in 1925 and Robert Zoellner in the 1990s).
Mary T. Sheahan, National Postal Museum
