Some Stamps

I'd like to present some of my stamps.
I was told that they're worthless but I kept them for their historic value. As a collector I keep them even though I do not have a collection of stamps.
I have more, but these are some of my favorites.




This is a usual stamp with a somewhat unusual cancel - the date is Sept. 7, 1939; so one week after world war II broke out. The post office Kutno is in central Poland, and it's safe to assume that by then that region was not controlled by the Nazi forces yet.
What's the possibility of this item being genuine?



My "10 milliarden" stamp. I keep it since it's a high denomination piece, and the date 22.11.23 is clearly visible.



Germany, 2 mark, interesting design



Danzig, 1 gulden, the same reasons.



I think I like the inflation period stamps too much. I know there was a series of these with different denominations and different colors, and the highest one was 10.000 mk.

Great Stamps DL20K

I love older stamps

Dianne

Wielkie skasowania






Dianne...How about older men ??

DL..no fooling..that Danzig stamp and cancel is fine !! I would say the 1939 Polish stamp and cancel are authentic..i dont really see much purpose in creating a fake.....

I love that Danzig stamp.
The "Free Cities" like Danzig and Frankfurt
have always fascinated me. I love anything
that denotes a German Free City.

Off topic...
There were some gorgeous 17th and 18th century
silver coins from Free City Frankfurt on ebay
recently. I wish I could have afforded them.
The artwork on the Free City stuff is always
amazing. A silver coin with a panoramic engraving
of the entire city is something to behold.

i was not aware of the free city status Frankfurt...i remember it was wide open in 1961 !!

Thanks! I did not expect this



I wish I had one of them. Or even the 1 kreuzer piece. A city view on a coin smaller than a dime



As my sources say "When the city sided with the Austrians in the Austro-Prussian War, victorious Prussia absorbed it in 1866".

Free cities were cities in the Holy Roman Empire that had certain autonomy and did not belong to a kingdom, duchy or whatever (such as Prussia, Saxonia, Bavaria etc.). They only had to answer to the emperor himself.
There used to be many "freie Reichsstädte" but in the 19th century only Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and Frankfurt/Main remained. Frankfurt was incorporated into Prussia, as DL20K already pointed out, and Lübeck also lost its free position. Only Hamburg and Bremen have retained until today.
Berlin and Danzig are no free cities in the traditional sense. Danzig became a free city after Worldwar 1, as it was no longer part of the German Reich, but was governed by the League of Nations and Berlin's status is the result of the partition of Germany after Worldwar 2.

Very nice Danzig stamp by the way.

Great Stamps! Please continue to show them.
Jan-Simon Thanks for the history lesson!

DL20K


No such thing as worthless.
Can you imagine the terror on sept 7th in that part of Poland?
Great Cancels, Great replies everyone.
DJD

Nice postmarks on those German stamps!

David

Bobgggg

Have you ever heard the expression "Many things improve with age"

Dianne

Thank you.



Exactly. I wonder how it was saved.

It might not be a bad idea to get a stamp album and put these stamps there

Many forward thinking German and Eastern Europe (including Polish) Jewish families converted a significant portion of their wealth to collectable stamps and coins in the '30's. They were portable, easy to conceal and relatively easy to convert back to daily-use currency if/when they emmigrated to the west.

most Jewish people were poor so they probably did not convert their money into stamps etc. And what is more shocking, even those who were wealthy enough could not escape through emigration because most countries, including Great Britain and the USA closed their borders for Jews...

On September 9th 1939 the battle of Kutno was fought. So I suppose that it was still relatively quiet on the 7th, as the fact that the letter for which the stamp was used got processed. And we do not know where it was sent to. It could have been sent to a place that was not occupied yet, or even abroad. Who knows...

Good thing it got out when it did.
The Nazis had no mercy on Poland. Scorched earth policy...