German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Covers

Silbermann Organs, pipe organs built by the famous German organ builder Gottfried Silbermann and by his workshop, issued on January 27, 1976.

historic coaches, issued on July 27, 1976.

Old sailing ships, issued on September 20, 1988.

These are all great. It is hard to pick a favorite, but you don't often see a collection of organs. I will have to go with them as a favorite. Such a nice collection your have.

Thank you very much, Wintertime! Indeed the colorful set of organ is very attractive and also one of my favorites. Hope you like the next group about "Cities in the DDR".

25th anniversary of the founding of Eisenhuttenstadt, issued on June 10, 1975.

The 1000th anniversary of Weimar, issued on September 23, 1975.

- Weimar, Town View (1650)
- Buchenwald concentration camp memorial in Weimar
- Historic and New Buildings in Weimar

District Cities in the North of the DDR, issued on April 5, 1988.

- Wismar
- Anklam
- Ribnitz Damgarten
- Stralsund
- Bergen
- Greifswald

Yes, LaoPhil. These are all very nice. The image of the commemorative wax seal for the 1000 year anniversary of Weimar is a nice touch, and the different design styles on each of the stamps on that cover are very interesting. I can't even begin to imagine 1000 years.

This album page is a unique non-philatelic item. It contains the Karl Marx Year miniature sheet issued by East Germany in 1953, together with Soviet stamps related to communism. The center stamp and the commemorative postmark were issued by the Soviet Union to commemorate the 25th Congress of the Communist Party, held in Moscow on February 24 to March 5, 1976. The page also bears the signature of Erich Honecker, who served as General Secretary of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) from 1971 to 1989.

This page is one of several from an album containing communist-themed stamps. Every page includes the same Soviet stamp and cancellation commemorating the 25th Congress of the Communist Party, together with a personal signature of a different communist party or state leader from around the world. I assume that a communist stamp collector prepared these pages and obtained the signatures from participants at the Congress. The collector continued to add stamps related to the same theme in the years that followed.


As for the Karl Marx Year miniature sheet on this page, it is one of two miniature sheets issued by DDR in 1953. Unfortunately, perhaps out of enthusiasm, the collector mounted one complete miniature sheet on this page but cut the 10-pfennig stamp from the second miniature sheet and pasted it over the upper-right stamp of the mounted sheet. In addition, he cut out the portrait of Marx and Engels from the margin of the second miniature sheet and pasted it over the 6-pfennig stamp of the mounted sheet, which originally depicted an industrial factory. I assume he created this personalized miniature sheet so that every stamp would feature Marx and Engels (or, maybe, to cover Stalin on the flags of both stamps?). In doing so, he destroyed both Karl Marx Year miniature sheets.