Victor Maximilian Berthold

Victor Maximilian Berthold is documented in library and book records as an author active in the worlds of philately, postal history, numismatics, and communications history. Catalogs from Smithsonian Libraries, Project Gutenberg, HathiTrust, and the Online Books Page list works including The Die Varieties of the Nesbitt Series of United States Envelopes, Bartels' Catalogue and Reference List of the United States Stamped Envelopes, Wrappers, Letter Sheets and Postal Cards, and Handbook of the Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Handstamps and Franks.

He also wrote a group of historical studies on telephone and telegraph systems in Latin America, including books on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay, published in the 1920s. Those titles suggest a writer with unusually broad interests: part specialist cataloger, part researcher of modern infrastructure and business history.

The dates most consistently attached to him in library records are 1856–1932, though at least one memorial record gives a birth date in January 1857, so even his exact birth year is not perfectly settled in the sources reviewed here. What is clear is that he left behind a body of work prized by collectors, archivists, and historians who still rely on his detailed reference books today.