Galerie

 

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If any one of these errors had not happened, this would have been just another cover. As it was, this anonymous sender (no return address) caused a letter to be delivered to the. police (!!) with a double postage-due penalty applied. I’m sure they did not enjoy the beauty of the two 800-pfennige postage due stamps silting there with the big 1600 in blue crayon above them and the Aus dem Brief kas ten marking. I’m sure they didn’t wonder what the rates were and what the markings meant. They did wonder who had cost them this money that they had to pay. I’m glad that they didn’t rip the envelope while hastily trying to find out what was inside and who had sent it!

The cover in Fig. 11 is at the other extreme. Forwarded postage due covers with several due stamps as well as the entlastet hand stamps that remove the due charge are always interesting. This one, however, is only a vehicle to gather the stamps and markings on a philatelic cover from one stamp dealer to another. While the Aus dem Brief kasten makes it especially interesting and unusual, it pales before a genuine usage. Unfortunately, sometimes the genuine usages do not exist, and the philatelic covers that were prepared and “set up” by stamp dealers are the only examples that have survived. This is because they knew the rules and saved the covers so that they could later sell them.

Figure 12 shows a use of the Aus dem Brief kasten hand stamp during the “postal war” that took place between the Danzig and Polish post offices for almort the entire history of the Free City. The picture post card with the Port Gdansk stamps was dropped into a Danzig mail box instead of the proper Polish box, where these stamps would have been recognized and accepted. The reverse of the 1928 card shows a battleship off the Neufahrwasser coast, a portent of how the real war started eleven years later.

FIGURE 12- Danzig 5 Kur und Seebäder, 25 June, 1928, to Lvov, Poland Port Gdansk stamps, Mi. 15 and 16, make up the correct 15 Groszy rate to Poland. Card was put into a Free City of Danzig mail box. Stamps were not recognized/accepted; therefore they were boxed by blue crayon. Aus dem Briefkasten and boxed T handstamps applied at Danzig post office.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 97 - October - November - December - 1997, Page 10.