Wituland / Swahililand: Help Needed

Does anyone know anything about the German East Africa Wituland /Swahililand stamps? I acquired what seems to be an almost complete collection in a lovely hand-illustrated Behrens album a few years ago, and have just started to bring them into the body of my collection.

There is plenty of information available about the history of Wituland (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wituland), but it's the philatelic story which seems to be missing. Apart from the helpful little information panels on each page, there's a little chit-chat on some German bulletin boards a few years ago but not much else of substance I can find on the Web. All I can work out is that they are probably better considered as local stamps, the Denhardt brothers were involved as usual, and that stamps on cover are scarcer than hen's teeth and certainly as expensive. I haven't had a chance to look at Michel, but does Robson-Lowe mention them? I think there are some of you out there who have his encyclopedia.

Here's a few scans of them. Sorry for the quality of one or two of the scans, but the album is fully bound, the paper size is a bit bigger than letter size, and it doesn't quite fit onto my A4 flatbed scanner.

If anyone knows anything more about them, I'd be really, really grateful for your help.

Nice collection. I wish I could add more.

Regards,
Stampalotapus

Tim, very very nice. Hopefully someone will be able to add info. (You know of course that your collection is quite valuable).

Nice pages ,thanks for showing them . Can I ask you what you paid for them ? Here is the page from my collection .

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GERMAN-EAST...d=p2047675.l (Especially interesting.)
http://www.cherrystoneauctions.com/...PROTECTORATE
http://www.delcampe.net/page/item/i...guage,E.html

What a great collection. I checked the Michel catalog - they refer to the Michel specialized catalog for these issues - which I don not have. Someone else will though. I am very curious to learn more about these stamps.

Unfortunately this issue is sold out: http://www.ffejournal.com/articles....ook=FFE+%233
(Perhaps the individual article is available.)

Thanks Floortrader. This more-or-less doubles the amount of information I have! And, yes, I paid quite a lot for the collection but when will you ever see these stamps again?

Here's an article from a 1973 issue of Vorläufer. The text is a little hard to read due to the poor quality of the scan, but my original is in a moving box somewhere in my storage room.

I've appended the Michel catalog excerpts as well.

https://books.google.com/books?id=D...e%22&f=false

How utterly fascinating, never knew these issues even existed. Granted they were a local post, but as precursors to postage stamps being issued in what is now Kenya and Tanzania they are really quite intriguing. Of course, Scott does not mention these issues even existing. Sigh.

Let's not forget that there has been much discussion as to whether these stamps really circulated. It seems certain that the related Malakote stamps were complete fabrications.

Postmaster, thanks for the scans. This is just the info I need! A huge "thumbs up" to the community for helping :-)

Tim-

There is an article about these stamps in the current issue of the London Philatelist. There also are many articles about the stamps, dating back to 1892. I am working on an article about them now and can share information with you. Could you contact me off list? Thanks. Farley Katz *** Private information removed by Staff. Please do not post your address/email/phone number etc. ***

Tim ,thanks for the positive comment ,this chat room is a great place to expand your philatelic knowledge .

Thread Bumped : Dormant 3 years