This series consists of celluloid and glass plate photographic negatives, produced following the appointment of the first official post office photographer in 1929, and were maintained for many years by the Drafting Section in the General Post Office, Sydney. In the mid-1960s the New South Wales Historical Section assumed responsibility for the negatives until its closure in 1988, when they were then held by the Records Management Section.
 
The negatives are black and white images of post office property and staff, of official functions, and of city streets and accident scenes. A number of negatives from the 19th century were reproduced from images acquired from the New South Wales State Government photographic collection while others were copied from pictures donated by members of the public.
 
The series is numbered sequentially, in rough chronological order, with multiple exposures of the same subject identified by an alphabetical suffix e.g. N3427 A. Different items sometimes bear the same number by mistake, while a few reappear in the collection carrying different numbers. Australia Post has retained a reference print of each item in the series.
 
This series contains audiovisual formats. As audiovisual formats are either redundant or susceptible to deterioration, some items in this series have been copied to ensure their preservation. Preservation copying involves the creation of preservation, duplicating and reference copies. These copies can be found in the following series:

Preservation copies: C5254, Photographic negative preservation masters of C4078, Australian Postal Commission Photographic negatives, single number series with N (New South Wales) prefix

Duplicating copies: C5255, Photographic negative duplicating copy of C4078, Australian Postal Commission Photographic negatives, single number series with N (New South Wales) prefix

Controlling series unregistered

c1929 - : N Series register