Swiss Semis And Military Stamps

Hi,
In the introduction I was ask to show some of my collections. I put 2 antarctica covers up in the other forum section and here is a page of my Swiss semipostals.



and also a page of Swiss military soldier stamps which I haven't seen much. The Swiss military issued these stamps at the time of WWII and were to be used by the soldiers to send free mail home. Many countries did so, but the Swiss used different designs for the difference units. I have several pages of these stamps, but have a hard time trying to authenicate them.



Haa, should have put each thing in a separate posting to get to 50 quicker. Hope you find these interesting.

Jim

Hello Jim, and welcome!

Have never before seen any of the Swiss military stamps. Interesting items.

Hi Modern who,

Thanks, I have seen covers on eBay and sometimes specialty websites, so they aren't too expensive, just not very well known, even to Swiss collectors. I also have some from Finland, but not too many.

Jim

Jim,

When you said you had some from Finland, you reminded me of this item from Sweden. It's a Militarbrev Faltpost, military use envelope with Svarsmarke, free frank reply stamp attached for response to a soldier's mail. I also have one of these used as a cover and postmarked 1959 so this envelope is circa 1959.






As you can see, the stamp for free reply is under the flap. It's part of the envelope but is die cut for easy removal.

Jim!

I love the Swiss stamps--gorgeous! Is that a Christmas stamp with the soldier and the NOEL 1942? How long have you been
collecting for??

Thanks and please post more!
Gussyboy1

Hi Gussyboy1,

Yes, it does say NOEL 1942, and it looks like it was overprinted. I will look through the rest of the collection to see if that regiment stamp exists without that NOEL. I always thought it was strange to have NOEL printed over the image of an infantry man blowing up something with a detonator, and also replacing the Star of Christmas with the swiss cross, but war is........

I started collecting in the early 1950s at age of about 8-9. Woolworths and Newberrys 5 and dime stores had packages of foreign stamps and that got me started :) Gosh time flies.... I stopped in high school and started again in 1970s, slowed down in 1980s until retirement a couple of years ago.

Jim

Modern who,

I had not seen one like that with the stamp attached. I haven't kept up, but does anyone know if free postage is used by current soldiers, or is it all email now? The occupational stamps were always interesting subjects also! Thanks for the photo.

Jim

Gussyboy1,

I forgot you have a red cross thread running. These have white crosses :)

if you start a nurse stamp thread along with it , include

Louise May Alcott issue 2/5/40 as was a charge nurse in the civil war.

Amelia Earhart issue 7/24/63 as she was a WW I volunteer nurse in toronto until she became ill in the Influenza epidemic ( but recovered)

Dorothy Dix issue 9/23/83 Superintendent of Female Nurses of the Union Army during the civil war.

These stamps show them without Nurse's garb and often are missed. I didn't know this until while reading the red cross thread, I looked at a framed display of "The Stamps of Nursing" which my nursing students of 1995 gave me for my birthday! They ordered it from some nursing supply house, and it is on my special wall :)

Jim

Hey Jim
Thanks for sharing your swiss stamps. I have amassed a few old swiss stamps but haven't sorted them out yet. Now I can't wait until I get a chance to sort through.

Dianne

Jim,
I did not know that Amelia was a volunteer nurse! Cool stuff!
I read Dorothea Dix and Nightingale in Junior High.

Now we need to add Dorothea Dix, Louise May Alcott, and Amelia E. stamps to this thread --anybody have any??

:http://goscf.com/t/842#842

Thanks Jim!

Gussyboy1

I went back to the collection and found another NOEL 1942 soldiers stamp, but it is in yellow rather than red :) Odd huh. Right below the triangles.



Some on this page are triangles. I Like that shape....probably from the Cape of Good Hope and Obock series :)

Jim

Awesome stamps! It is unusual how they worked Christmas into the stamp of a soldier blowing something up! What is the catalog # on that??????

Gussyboy1

HI Gussyboy,

I last belonged to the APS and used their library services about 12 yrs ago, and when I got this group, I borrowed a specialized Swiss reference, printed in German that had photos and classified by types and numbers. They didn't have special prefixes. The author was H. Sulser. I will look through the pages and notes I copied to see if I can find more info...but it may be a while :)

Jim

Hello.....

I don't think these are stamps...cinderellas probably...the first group are stamps but none of the rest are in Scott cat.

Hi Tom,

They were produced by the Swiss government for their soldiers in WW1 and WW2 to use to mail free letters back home, and they were used for that ( many on cover).

The "Stamp Collector's Encyclopedia" by R. J. Sutton says " Soldier's Letter Stamps: China, France,Germany,Japan, Sweden, Switzerland have issued special stamps for the use of the arm forces, franking their mail free of charge"

There are printed album pages available, and check http://www.hrharmer.com/sales/191/HTML/191_24.html

scroll down to auctions 1693, 1699, and 1706 of Swiss soldier stamps.

Now I do think the Swiss went overboard from what I know of their efforts in WW1 and WW2. Really 1 or 2 different soldier stamps would have worked, but I guess they felt that a separate one for each division/battalion/ or area such as infantry , aviation ( swiss air force ??), demolition, would make the soldiers feel they had a great importance.

It is a specialized area and I only found the references in the one Swiss catalog mentioned up-thread. The encyclopedia had one small b/w illustration of a chinese soldier stamp of what looks like an anti-aircraft bunker. I do like oddities and research.

Jim

Jim......

Interesting stuff........50 years and still learning.....I love it.