The old letter and it’s seals

Collecting pre-philatelic letters and covers will sooner or later force you to take a good look at the sometimes beautiful wax seals on the back side. I cannot help wondering whether with the help of these seals more information could be retrieved about the sender of the letter and the date of the letter especially when the letter has no sender and no date or no full date ís indicated anywhere on the letter be it inside or outside.

In 1949 an Austrian Baron named Anton Kumpf Mikuli (1879-1968) published a thin book entitled „Der Brief als kulturgeschichtliches Studien- und Sammelobjekt“ (the Letter as an Item for Cultural History Studies and Collecting). This booklet is said to be the basic work on “the letter” and a must for all collectors of classic letters and covers.

The book is a joy to read provided of course that you know some German. It touches in a very thorough way on all subjects that relate to the letter like paper, its watermarks, script, titles and addresses, censorship, postmarks and even the topic of humor and letters and pictures on letters just to mention some of the headings.

Kumpf Mikuli presents the reader with a simple but most intriguing definition of the thrust a letter. "A letter is basically a message to somebody who is absent. If the receiver replies you have a correspondence.”

As you can understand the book itself merits a post of its own, but for now I limit myself to the topic of the wax seal.

Kumpf Mikuli writes about The Sealing of Letters. The seal originally was made of a special kind of soil which in the middle of the 16th century was replaced by wax later to be replaced by the wax seal which was widely used in the 17th and 18 centuries. Around 1700 the first wafers were introduced into which vignettes were pressed. Seal labels are seen already in the second half of the 18th century. Most wax seals were red but black wax seals are not that scarce since they were used on mourning letters. At certain times and in certain countries the colour of the seal was attached to rank: Red for the better off people and yellow for the less fortunate.

The symbol in the seal – which is supposed to be the core topic or rather question of this post – could be initials, names, images, portraits and cotes of arms. Kumpf Mikuli states in this context that the letter seals represent a special branch of the study of heraldry and genealogy.

Here is an easy targit because you can read the text around the symbols: "Hamburg Police Authority". But what do the symbols signify?

I am (only) a stamp collector and a philatelist. I need help from a heraldryst or genealogist.

I'll now show you more of my the seals which all have a connection to Schleswig-Holstein except for the red one in the center which belongs to a cover sent from Roskilde in Denmark to Schleswig Holstein. I would very much like to know more about them. What do they represent? What do the individual symbols represent. For instance the standing horse? The fox or is it a kind of long dog? The coat of arms. Just press the image and you will have a larger one on your screen.

And finally a black one with the text: Royal Rendsburg County House. Again there are symbols and does the colour signify death or mourning? Or was it just the colour of the day?

Fandt ét - søger et anden!

På denne blog efterlyste jeg i november 2007 et dansk grænseportobrev frankeret med 4skilling tofarvet. Det kunne f.eks. være sendt fra Kolding til Haderslev, dvs. mellem byer beliggende på hver sin side men stadig tæt på Kongeå grænsen.

Kommer bjerget ikke til Jeppe så må Jeppe komme til bjerget, sagde Ludvig Holberg. I hvert fald lykkedes det mig for nylig at udfylde hullet i min samling med dette brev:



Brevet er sendt

The Concept of a Newspaper Wrapper

What is a Newspaper Wrapper? Everybody seem to know! But if you have to define a Newspaper Wrapper using words, you end up with the problem of defining an elephant. When you see them, you know them, but describing them precisely and in a non-ambigious way is difficult.

Not wanting to turn this post into a linguistic, philosophical discussion, I will now mention some of the characteristics that I think normally cling to a Newspaper Wrapper:

Paper suited to be wrapped around a newspaper or similar object like a band.

Open in both sides.

Stationery, produced by postal authorities or privately manufactured from a plain piece of paper.

Pre-printed postage stamp/postage stamp/pre-philatelic payment.

Special cheap postal rate.

But then, what about the label like pieces of paper stuck on the content? Like this one:


What about a wrapper the content of which is printed on its inside? Like invitation or stock exchange data. What about the old cross-bands?

Of course as a collector you decide yourselves what to include in or exclude from your collection. If you want to exhibit your collection this however will be some of the issues that you have to clarify and to draw your red lines.

What do you think of this description of a Newspaper Wrapper? Come and debate with me.


Have a nice day

Svend

Denmark 1882/84: Small and large corner figures

In 1882 Denmark responded to a call from the UPU to issue stamps in colors green, red and blue carrying the rates valid for printed matter to another UPU country, lettercard to another UPU country and a normal letter to another UPU country.

A green 5 and a blue 20 øre stamp were issued and letter cards with the face value of a red 10 øre. The subject was the same. Coat of arms in a kind of Victorian style. In 1884 the green 5 and the blue 20 øre stamps were reissued in a slightly different design and a red 10 øre stamp was added to the series.

To collectors of Danish stamps there is an important difference between the stamps issued in 1882 and 1884. The first have small corner figures and the second have large corner figures, the collectors are told by most catalogs.

Many times I have seen stamps with large corner figures for sale presented as if they have small corner figures. It goes without saying that the first are the rarest and more expensive ones since they were printed in much smaller quantities than the later ones. Collectors and dealers are however to some extent excused when mixing up the the two designs. The name "small and large corner figures" points to a difference in design, but if you do not have both types in front of you, what do you do? The difference is there, but it is not for everybody to see, if you cannot compare. Besides small and large are relative terms.

Luckily there are other differences which are much easier to detect than the diferent sizes of the figures. The most important one is absence of color in a band around the crown. If the color fills out the whole area around the crown it is the 1882 printing, the rarer one. If there is a clear white band or line following the shape of the upper part of the crown it is the 1884 issue. You can hardly miss it if you know where to look. I add a picture of the 1882 issue.

Take a good look at your Victorian style Danish stamps and report to me if you have problems.

By the way. The 10 øre red does in fact alsoexist with small corner figures. However this is the result of a conscious printing error. Some clichées were damaged when the 10 øre 1884 issue was printed. As replacement the printers used clichées used for the 1882 letter cards which had small corner figures.

That means we are talking about isolated clichées in sheets with large corner figures. These 10 øre stamps with small corner figures are of course very rare indeed. Below I show a wonderful pair of 10 øre red: The left stamp is an isolated clichée with small corner figures, the right stamp a normal clichée with large corner figures.



You see the difference in the corners as well as with regards to the white line around the upper part of the crown?

Enjoy looking for the different types, including the rare isolated clichées.

France: The Calender of the Jacobins

I have a collection entitled ” Chatou my village west of Paris”. Three old letters from the time of the French Revolution form part of my collection. I show them below. In many ways they are something special. First, however, I want to provide you with some background information which will make it easier to understand the (inside) dates of the letters.

At the French revolutionary convention in October 1793 a new revolutionary calendar was approved. The calendar was implemented on September 22, 1793. It was decided to start counting from this same day, but from the previous year, 1792; the day of the decision to abolish the monarchy and the creation of the republic.

The year was divided into 12 months of 30 days, which leaves us with a surplus of 5 days (6 days in leap years), which were placed at the end of the year. The surplus days were called ”sans-culottides” and would be national holidays. Every month consists of three weeks,”décades”. The last day in a week would be a day for resting. The months were grouped in 4 sets of three according to the seasons – autumn, winter, spring and summer. They are given natural names. The weekdays were called first day, second day, third day aso. till the tenth day. The Calender never became popular with the people and was abolished by Napoleon in year 12 (1804).

Letter No. 1: As can be seen from all three letters one addressed each other ”citoyen” i.e. citizen in the name of equality.This is a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 14. Nivôse (snow) Year 5, i.e. 3rd of January 1797. The postage, 4 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The embossed postmark shows the towns name and the number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”.

Letter no. 2: This is a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 5. Ventôse (wind) year 6, i.e. 23rd February 1798. The postage, 5 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The red postmark shows the towns name and the number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”. The colour of the postmark does not signify any special function, but the red one is rare.

Letter No. 3: Finally a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 15. Ventôse (wind) year 7, i.e. 5th March 1799. The postage, 4 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The red postmark shows the towns name and number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”.

When you collect a French area as I do there is no way round the updating of a chapter of the history of France. But this certainly just adds to the adventure.

The village of Chatou has its own homepage telling for instance the history of the place. The story of the Calendar of the Jacobins is told on many a fine site.

Danish bicolored. What is an isolated frame?

Recently I was asked “What is an isolated frame”. I promise not to turn this blog into a blog about bicolored stamps only, but this particular question I deem to be of a general interest and I therefore will gladly try to give an answer.

Many but not all the printings of the bicolored stamps of Denmark were printed in sheets of 100, two at a time. You may call them an A-sheet and a B-sheet. Depending which printing we are talking about all stamps in a sheet can have either the normal frame or the inverted frame as shown in my post below.

In certain printings one or a few clichés were turned 180 degrees. For what reason this happened is still being debated among the specialists. Anyhow, the result is that in certain printings you find 99 stamps with the normal frame and one stamp with the inverted frame. Or the opposite; in certain sheets you find 99 stamps with inverted frames and 1 stamp with a normal frame. This one inverted or the one normal frame is named ”an isolated frame”.

Most of the stamps with isolated frames have small errors and can therefore be separated from other stamps. It follows that stamps with a normal frame as well as stamps with an inverted frame can be common or can be rare depending whether they are isolated frames or belong to the great majority of stamps with the same frame in the sheet of a printing.

The five øre isolated frame shown is one of the rarest isolated frame. It belongs to Henrik Mouritsen.

A follow-up question:

In some sheets there are more than one that are different from the majority of stamps in the sheet. Are they also called “isolated frames”? And can normal frame also be isolated frames?

This question has more to do with language than with the way the stamps were produced.

The concept of “an isolated frame” encompasses the situation when there is more than one or several frames in a sheet that are different from the majority of frames. I cannot tell where the balance tilts - “the fifty-fifty situation” - but never mind. Such a setting does not exist.

Take for instance the socalled ”mixed series” which includes printing 12 of the 4 øre denomination. In the one of the two sheets that were printed at the same time all frame are normal but for 22 stamps which have the inverted frame. There inverted frames are called isolated frames. In the other sheet all 100 frames are normal but one which is inverted and is of course also named an isolated frame.

If we take a look at 12 øre 3rd print it consists of 53 normal frames and 47 inverted frames which by the way are all thick frames. The term “isolated” is not used about the 47 inverted stamps. It seems that we have reached the limits of the concept “isolated”.

I think that an element of the concept of ”isolated” is that the frame in question is rare and the more of a kind that exist in a certain print the less the rarity.

The 22 inverted frames in the 4 øre print 12 (A-plate) are considered interesting because they are almost all identifiable. In addition most of them are spread out in the sheet as if all the clichés had been dropped and put together maybe a little too quickly. Finally the colors of the stamp are very similar to the colors of other printings and therefore can be hard to identify already for that reason. In that respect the inverted frames come helpful, exactly because they are inverted which help you distinguish them from stamps from other similar looking prints.

Two normal frames from the 12th printing the right stamp being position 100, the position of the left stamp still illusive.

And yes! Normal frames can also be isolated frames. A very good example we find in the printings 52-53 and 54-55 of the 8 øre denomination. In the prints 52-53 you have one isolated inverted frame in the A-sheet on position 70; in the prints 54-55 you have one isolated normal frame in the A-sheet on position 31. The whole plate with all its individual clichés have been turned 180 degrees.

Position 31 - 33 printing 54
(sold at Thomas Høiland Auction june 2007)

Actually it is not that difficult to understand the system of the bicolored, if only you get a good explanation and get the chance to see the stamps with your own eyes. But many things in life are in fact like that.

Am I right?

A wrapper from the Kingdom of Samoa

So tempting to start a new collection of Samoa. At times Samoa was independent, at times under English, German, New Zealand and United States control. Since 1962 Samoa is again an independent nation. For philatelists and postal historians there is plenty to go for.

Collecting a cross-boundary item as I do – "Newspaper Wrappers Worldwide from Before 1900" – I sometimes touch on areas so fascinating that I get tempted to start up a new collection.

Looking for wrappers on the Internet in December 2006 I came across an unusual one at Ebay. The starting price was low. Having acquired some extra information from the seller I made what I thought was a fair bid 77 US $. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the price going steep upwards and ending at 1.981 US $. I am sure the seller was delighted and just as surprised as I was.

What is so special about this wrapper? According to the postmark dated August 16 (no year), it was sent from Apia on the Island of Upolo, which is part of the group of 14 islands that lies about 1600 miles north-east of New Zealand and bears the name of Samoa. The addressee is a Mr. Kusenach, in Lehe, which is a small town near Bremerhafen at the North West coast of Germany. The wrapper is directed to be sent via San Francisco in the United States.

The postage is made up of a 1 penny stamp from The Kingdom of Samoa (probably SG 35 issued in Mai 1890) plus a 1 cent stamp from the United States (Y&T 1931 no. 70 issued 1890 – 1893). This combination is unusual.

The reason behind this special rate is that the United States had joined the UPU in 1875. Samoa was however still not a party to the UPU cooperation, and therefore the question of the validity of Samoan stamps for oversees postage was raised. Mail from Samoa for e.g. Australia and New Zealand was accepted without surcharge by their postal authorities, but for delivery in the United States and onwards additional postage was needed. For a letter 5cent; for a printed matter 1 cent (at least according to our wrapper).

References:

World History Stamp Atlas by Rossiter and Flower 1986/1991

Stanley Gibbons, British Commonwealth 2000 Edition

Yvert et Tellier Catalogue de Timbres Postes 1931

A Jewel of Danish Philately: 48 sk. block of 4

At a recent auction held by Enger in Norway one of the jewels of Danish Philately was sold for a considerable sum: A block of four of 48 skilling bi-colored issued in 1870.

The block is special in two ways. All four stamps have the so-called "thick frame". All 48 sk. have that frame so the 48 sk. does not exist with the thinner frame that is the frame common to most bi-colored editions. As always there are exceptions and I shall revert to them in a later post.

The other reason why the block is special is because the stamp in the South East corner has the inverted frame. Yes you are right. A thick inverted frame. In one sheet of 100 of 48 sk. stamps only two stamps have the inverted frame. The two stamps with the inverted frame are called isolated inverted thick frames, which is natural since the other 98 stamps in the sheet have the normal thinner frame.

How does one recognize a thick frame? Yes! it is a bit larger than the normal frame. In fact if you measure the corner feather North East we are talking about 0.2 mm. A normal feather measures 2.6 mm. A thick feather 2.8 mm. But it is not just the feathers that are bigger. The whole frame is a little bit bigger.

If you face a real thick frame you cannot miss it, however – and there is always an however – the clichés of the normal frame do become worn and sometimes a stamp from a printing having been printed wholly or partly with worn cliché’s do look as if they have thick frames. They do not. I show you one of each. First a genuine thick normal frame followed by a stamp printed with a worn cliché of a normal thinner frame.

Enjoy the 4 block because you will probably not be able to see it live. The purple color very easily fades when exposed to natural bright light and therefore the block is not likely to be shown at public exhibitions and fairs.

Danish Bicoloured: The Elusive Frames

The Danish bi-colored stamps (1875 - 1905) are wonderful stamps. Pretty and full of unsolved mysteries. You can spend hours learning about how they were designed, produced and finally delivered by the printers to the Postal Authorities. If you have studied enough, which presupposes having enough material; If you have acces to the right literature and have acquired some experience in identifying the secreets, you may be able to determine a stamp by its printing and maybe even by its original position in the sheet.

The Danish bi-colored stamps are not rare stamps. Most of them were produced in millions. Some of the denominations you can even still buy by the hundreds for 15 - 20 $. Others will cost you more.

Their design consists of a frame and an oval. In order to determine their type according to the catalogues you need to understand at least the difference between a normal and an inverted frame. You will see the difference clearly from the old drawing shown above.

I will not dwell on the details of the differences between the two types in this posting. The point I want to make is, that you can only very rarely determine their number in the catalog and thereby their value by their type of frame alone. You need to combine the information of the type with more information to do that. Therefore never accept information given at auction or by a seller about the type of a stamp as the only and final proof of the identity of a stamp if the auctioneer or the seller claims that the stamp is rare and valuable because of its type of frame alone.

Some stamps with a normal frame can in facty be very rare; some stamps with an inverted frame can also in fact be very rare. It all depends, which denomination and which printing they belong to. And in order to determine that, you need a whole lot more information about this series and experience in dealing with this information as I have already stated above.Therefore if tempted by an offer of a bi-cored stamp with a rare frame always demand a certificate by an expert known to posses the necessary knowledge about the subject.

Here follows two samples. One stamp with an inverted frame and one stamp with a normal frame. Soon I'll come back to complicate matters telling about thick frames, which can also be devided into the to types mentioned.