Greenland Parcel Post, Pakke Porto Stamps

I agree, the variety of existing cancels is also very interesting. However, one has to be comfortable with the fact that most of those stamps were not postally used. As you correctly point out, many were used as part of the savings system. I have a couple of savings books as well in my collection. I'll get to those a bit later.

Between 1918 and 1930, there were several other printings of the different values. The GTO had learned its lesson and all further printings had all stamps perforated on four sides. Here's what I have:

In 1918, the 5 and 10 ore values were reprinted. These are what some catalogues list as "thick paper". Stamps perforated 11.25



In 1919, the 1 and 2 ore values were reprinted. These stamps were printed on a very distinctive greyish paper, between 0.10 and 0.105 mm thick. Actually these stamps were the reason I became interested in the different printings. Stamps perforated 11.25

In 1923, the 15 and 20 ore values were reprinted. These are also the "thick paper" types listed in some catalogues and are about 0.10 mm thick. Stamps perforated 11.25



In 1924, the 1, 2, 5 and 10 ore values were reprinted again. They were printed on thin paper, 0.09 mm thick for the 1 and 2 ore and 0.066 to 0.07 mm thick for the 5 and 10 ore. Stamps perforated 11.25



...to be continued.

After a few days without much time to post, here are a few additional stamps:

In 1926, the 1 ore values was reprinted. These stamps were printed on white paper, between 0.08 and 0.085 mm thick. Stamps perforated 11.25

Between 1926 and 1933, there were 6 different printings of the 20 ore value. These stamps were printed in large numbers compared to all the other values due to the 20 ore stamp being widely used for a postal savings system in Northern Greenland. It is very hard to distinguish these printings so I decided to just keep a representative. These stamps were printed on white paper, between 0.08 and 0.085 mm thick and also perforated 11.25.




In 1928, the 5, 10 and 15 ore values were reprinted. These stamps were printed on thin white paper, about 0.066 mm thick. Stamps perforated 11.25




Then in 1930, the postal rates for parcels to Greenland were increased significantly (10 to 20 fold higher depending on weight). New values of 70 ore, 1 krone and 3 krone were issued. These stamps were printed on toned thin paper, about 0.07 mm thick. Stamps perforated 11.25

A small part of the 70 ore and 3 kr issue was actually printed on thicker white paper, 0.09 mm thick. They are easy to distinguish just by the tone of the paper.

In 1931 there was the last printing of the 10 ore value with perforation 11.25. These stamps are more greenish-blue than the earlier printings.



The last printings of Pakke-Porto stamps were done in 1937. I am not sure of the reasons but instead of going back to Thiele printers, they split the issue between two new printers:

Schultz printed the 10, 20, 70 ore and 1 krone. The typographs used for the 20, 70 ore and 1 kr were the same used before so we can find the same printing flaws present in previous printings. For the 10 ore stamp, new typographs were created. They are almost identical to the previous 10 ore stamps. However, the printing flaws we find on this stamp are not the same as before. The color of this stamp is also a greenish-blue. Schultz changed the perforation size. All these stamps were perforated 10.75



Part of the issue for the 70 ore and 1 krone stamps were printed by Andreasen & Lachman printers. They chose to print the stamps by photolithography, which required reengraving the designs. These two stamps are markedly different and easily recognizable. All catalogues give them separate numbers. These two stamps were also perforated 10.75



All the 1937 issued stamps were in use for about a year before Pakke-Porto stamps were discontinued. Because of this they are very abundant in mint condition.

So this finishes all the printings for the different stamps. Next I will show printing varieties.

Thought I'd share the 20 ore first printing stamp with one straight edge I was missing and received today.



And moving on to printing varieties now... For each value there are some constant printing flaws identified. These varieties appear in all the printings for each value as the same cliches were used for all the printings, although there were mounted in different positions on the sheet. I assume the printers cleaned the individual cliches before each printing and then remounted them into a new 5x5 sheet, without much care on which position the individual stamps would end up.

I follow the 1988 study from Eric Wowern to collect the different printing flaws and this is what I'll show on my next posts. It's likely that other constant printing flaws exist and may have been recorded more recently but, if that is the case, I am not aware of other studies. I also find curious that despite having seen hundreds of these stamps there are some of these printing flaws I have never seen. I suspect that not all the Wowern reported flaws may be real.

Here are the 1 ore and 2 ore printing varieties.

In my Greenland pages online I have the reprinted material from 1983-1985. It has a wealth of information on the various varieties...

Thank you for the link billsey. I don't have any of those reprints in my collection, so it's good to see what was actually issued.

Here are the printing varieties I have for the 5 ore and 10 ore values. I haven't posted in a few days as I was waiting for two of these stamps which came in the mail today. Still many empty spaces here

A couple more, the 15 and 20 ore values.

And one last post on printing flaws on the rest of the values. These are the 70 ore, 1 and 3 krone. I've shown the 10 ore printing flaws already but for the 1937 issue of the 10 ore stamp, new cliches were made, which have different flaws than the earlier printings.

The last page shows the lithographed values of the 70 ore and 1 krone stamps.








What should I show next? Cancels or Fiscal uses?

Since there are no preferences, I'll start with the fiscal uses. By far, the largest use these stamps had in Greenland was of fiscal nature as part of a savings system that was implemented in the Northwest of Greeenland.

In 1926 a savings system was put in place to encourage Greenlanders to save money for the winter months. It was all pretty primitive. Savings booklets could be obtained for free and folks would buy and stick Pakke-Porto stamps on them during the year. Then around Christmas, the full value of the stamps could be cashed and the stamps would get canceled.

I have a couple of these booklets in my collection. One from 1927 and one from 1938.









The 20 ore stamp was most commonly used although I have occasionally seen the 1kr stamp on booklets as well. According to Wowern, most of the exchanged booklets were destroyed although some had been sent back to Denmark and remained there until the 1940s, when they were sold by the Greenland Trade Office in a public auction. The ones remaining nowadays are from 1927, 1928, 1937 or 1938.

I have seen some dealers asking crazy prices (many hundreds of US dollars) for these booklets. Be aware that most can be purchased in Europe for $100-150. The value can be higher in some cases and it depends on: a)how many stamps they have, b) the cancels on the stamps as a few of them are quite rare and c) the denomination of the stamps. As I said, 20 ore is most common, then 1kr, any other values are quite rare.

This savings system was used across almost 40 parishes belonging to seven districts of northwest Greenland. Each parish had a numeral cancel from south to north for these stamps. They are pretty distinctive: "Nr. XX Avane" and we refer to them as "avane cancels". (Avane means North).

I have several of these, shown below. Apparently after being cashed out, the stamp booklets were sent to Godshavn. If for some reason the stamps had not been canceled, they had a generic cancel waiting for them. It's on the last image: "Landsforgeden I Nordgronland".

There are a couple other cancels of fiscal nature but I don't have them. I should also mention that postal cancels from the colonies were occasionally used to cancel savings stamps.

I find cancels on Pakke-Porto stamps very fun and interesting to collect. But it's very important to understand what these cancels are and where they come from. Some guidelines I find useful:

1) There are two main categories of cancels. a) those from the Greenland trade office (GTO) in Copenhagen and b) those from the rest of trade offices in Greenland.

2) The vast majority of parcels went from Denmark to Greenland. Parcels from Greenland to Denmark or between Greenland towns are extremely rare.

3) Most of the stamps used in Greenland were not for parcel post but as part of the savings system, so a revenue use.

4) The GTO continued to cancel stamps to order up until 1956, well beyond the valid period of use for the stamps.

With these in mind, if one wants to collect cancels on postally used stamps, you might as well not even start. Most of the stamps with Copenhagen cancels are CTOs and most of the stamps with Greenland cancels are either CTOs or revenue uses. As long as one is OK with this, I'll say it again, this a really fun and interesting collection.

I don't have many of these cancels yet and I tend to be picky choosing stamps where the cancel is almost complete and legible. Cancels from Copenhagen were done with rubber stamps, usually in black, blue or purple ink, with no dates and some reference to the Administration for Greenland. In 1936 a steel round date cancel was introduced which remained in use for the remainder of the valid Pakke-Porto period.

These are my Copenhagen cancels:

Here are my Greeenland cancels. All of them seem the easier ones to find from what I have seen.