Croatian Model Airplane Expo Of 1942

It's time for another show-and-tell! Today's topic -- the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska or NDH) Model Airplane Exposition of 1942.

On 25 March 1942, the Croatian Wings, an organization devoted to model airplanes, opened an exposition in Zagreb, Croatia. To commemorate the Expo, a series of stamps was issued depicting model airplanes, with the surcharges going to benefit Croatian Wings.



The stamps were printed in sheets of 24 or 25. The sheets are identical, except the sheet of 24 substitutes a Croatian Wings Coat-of-Arms at Field 13.






At Field 12 of each sheet, a single stamp bore an engraver's mark. The marks are the numbers "1", "9", "4", and "2", to commemorate the year, but the "4" and "2" are out of order if you place the stamps in value order (OOPS!).



On the same day, two souvenir sheets were issued featuring the same stamp designs but in slightly larger size, with larger values and changed colors.



About 10% of the imperforate sheets feature an engraver's mark, either an "R" or "V" in the lower right corner of the 2K or 3K value, respectively.





In addition to the issues released to the public, the NDH also issued a small number of Minister Albums which featured a number of varieties not released to the public. These included:

Imperforate varieties of the four basic issues



Proofs on chalky white paper



Proofs of the souvenir sheets with different color combinations and stamp arrangements





And large uncut sheets containing four souvenir sheets (I only have these in sheets of two).

VERY interesting & fabulous!

Cheers

Great Post, Postmaster.

You have some fascinating stuff Postmaster. I always enjoy your posts,
mainly because there is so much history behind them.

Couple of questions. Who was the printer for these and other Croatian
issues?

Also, was war time Croatia really an independent State as you
mentioned? It was created by Nazi Germany after the invasion
of Yugoslavia and continued to be an Italian/German puppet state
right to the end.

lithograving,

Thanks for the compliment. The primary reason I chose to collect Germany through WWII is largely because there's a fascinating history behind it.

With regard to printers, I looked through Dr. Rommerskirchen's Manual of the Independent State of Croatia Issues 1941-1945, and there are three printers that show up repeatedly -- the Croatian State Printer in Zagreb (these issues), the Austrian State Printer in Vienna, and Tipografija Inc. of Zagreb.

The NDH was really independent in name only. It was run by the Ustaše, a fascist party that served as a puppet of the Nazi party. That's why it's not uncommon for collectors of German stamps to include the NDH alongside the more traditional WWII occupied territories.

Thanks Postmaster. I love reading about my two favourite
pastimes; Stamps and History.