Album Pages On Germanstamps.net

These pages are fantastic ... Thank you so much for sharing

Hi.

I checked your page and you have done a very nice job.
Congratulations !!!!

Thank you for sharing!

Beyond breathtaking

I just uploaded album pages for the German Post Offices Abroad in China, Morocco, and Turkey. As usual, downloads are here.

A few samples (click to enlarge):

China


Morocco


Turkey

I discovered a major typo on the title page of all the Post Office Abroad pages. If you've already downloaded a copy, you'll want to go re-download the corrected version.

I just uploaded A4-sized pages for the Generalvouvernement. As with all Third Reich-era A4 pages, they're also available in StGB-compliant versions for any German users out there.

As usual, downloads are here.

In addition, I decided to undertake a major project before it grew any larger — consistency, a.k.a. the bane of a page designer's existence.

When I started making these pages available, I merely took my existing pages and removed the catalog numbers. However, because those pages had been built piecemeal over a period of about 5 years, there was a general lack of consistency in the formatting. For example, on some pages, the title was slightly higher than on others; some flags and photos were flat, while others had a slight embossing effect applied; the photo captions were all over the map in terms of positioning, size, and capitalization. Some of this can be fixed through editing the master templates I use, but most of it is page specific because each page has its own stamps, photos, text, etc.

In 99% of the cases where there were inconsistencies, they wouldn't be obvious to you, the end user. They're hard to see in the PDFs, but they're extremely obvious in InDesign because I can tell when things aren't lined-up with the on-screen guides.

I have a minor case of OCD, and this was driving me nuts. So, I decided to tackle it before it grew even further out of hand. I went back into every page I've build for distribution to "fix" these minor inconsistencies — by my count, 5,450 pages in total. The formatting of all the pages I've released should now be about 99% consistent.

The changes were minor, so anyone using the older pages shouldn't feel like they have to move their stamps to new pages. Even holding the pages side-by-side, you'd be hard pressed to detect most of the edits without a ruler. But, if you were planning on using these pages and haven't yet started mounting stamps to them, I recommend you go download the newest versions so they'll be as close as possible to matching across the various page sets.

This update is likely of little interest to anyone here, but for the sake of completeness...

I've recently been working on uber-specialized versions of my German Colonies pages, this time including all Michel-listed plate flaws, overprint flaws, printing flaws, etc. I finally got them done and uploaded, replacing the previous Specialized pages for those areas.

Here are a few samples:

As always, downloads are here.

Added the Officials from the Weimar Republic (Deutsches Reich, 1919-1932). A few samples:

Downloads are here.

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE:

I recently had a user tell me that portions of the pages weren't printing correctly. Specifically, certain images were either printing blurry, dark, partially, or not at all.

Unfortunately, I'm in COVID quarantine and won't have access to a printer for about a month. Can someone download this file (46 MB PDF) and see if the images on the following pages print correctly?

Pages 2, 4, 20-27

Doesn't have to be on album paper, I just need to know if it's a problem with the file or the user's setup.

Thanks in advance.

Jed:

They printed out fine for me. No issues.

This is stunning thank you. Putting on my list of things I'd like to do.

Today's episode:

What happens when a specialized collector starts down a rabbit trial?

- or -

Let's start the insanity...

All photos link to larger versions

My collection is Germany and related areas from 1872-1945. That's already fairly specialized, but I have one area which you might call a sub-speciality -- the German Colonies and Post Offices Abroad.

One thing I never attempted to do, however, was to collect postmarks of the Colonies and PO Abroad. Postmarks in the Colonies are "easier" to collect than in many collecting areas, since the PO's were only in operation for about 30 years, the numbers were fairly limited, and the dates, locations, and cancels are all well documented. In short, it's a well-defined area that, with enough investment of time and money, is do-able. I never wanted to attempt it, though, because I still had too many stamp holes to fill to divert money to postmarks.

But... not too long ago, I saw an unusual German New Guinea cancel on eBay and I snapped it up. I then needed a page to display it, so I built one.

But... the page looked lonely in my album, as it was the only postmark page. It just looked out of place. So, I decided to build pages for all the German New Guinea postmarks. There are only 24, so it should have been short and sweet.

But... the cancel catalog also listed postmarks of German naval vessels that were used on German New Guinea stamps. Might as well do those, too. That's another 23 pages.

But... there were also civilian mail steamers with cancellers that were used on German New Guinea stamps. Have to do those, too. That's another 31 pages.

So my 1 postmark page turned into 78. And there went my weekend.

I haven't made these available on my website yet because I'm in the middle of another server move, but here are a few samples.

The PO pages have a map with a dot showing the location of the PO and some basic info on the PO and the cancel. A few pages have photos of the PO, if available. The public versions won't have stamp boxes, since it's difficult to get the sizes right (the stamps on which these were used were 5-6 different sizes, not to mention those on-piece). Instead, I just left a large blank space to accommodate stamps of difference sizes, more than 1 stamp, etc.

The pages for the naval cancels (Marineschiffspost) have info on the ships and the dates when those ships were in the German New Guinea area.

The pages for the mail lines have info on the lines, the ships that were in use, and the cancellers.

I also included pages for some unauthorized cancels that were used in a few instances on ships carrying mail within the colony.

So now that German New Guinea's done, on to German East Africa...

Hi @PostmasterGS, thank you for sharing the great material!

The amount of detail and craftsmanship in your pages always amazes me!

Beautiful pages Postmaster GS.

Thanks to them I was able to find one of the plate flaws. Deutsch Neu Guinea 13. The one with the Unlisted in the description. Bottom row of the sheet.