Lisbon Museum of Communications

The Museum of Communications in Lisbon is operated by the Portuguese Communications Foundation, which is a collaboration between the National Communications Authority, the Portuguese Postal Services and Portugal Telecom. It aims to promote the study, conservation and understanding of the communications heritage. The earliest parts of the collections date back to 1878 and have been continuously expanded. The present museum opened in 1997. The artefacts range from the sixteenth century to the present. The postal collections include a definitive collection of stamps from Portugal and a wide-ranging collection for the rest of the world, together with scale models, signs and furniture, postboxes and sacks, uniforms and stamping machines. The telecommunications collections cover telegraphy, early telephones, transmission equipment and computers. There are displays of submarine cable-laying, stagecoaches and a railway car containing a postal sorting office.