Maximaphily (Maximum Cards)

A maximum card of the 60 pf. value of the Berlin "buildings" series. I have collected these stamps for many years. This one is a real, glossy photograph.

Thank you, Bas! It may still be still on sale on Delcampe or ebay.

A nice one from Freiburg Baden. Germany 1948.

"Why would anyone stick a stamp over the main feature when there is a better space available. Here the stamp is stuck over the cable car image when there is plenty of clear space to the right."

I believe that location was chosen so the postmark would fall on a white space rather than being obscured elsewhere. Not ideal, but the result is a readable clear postmark and not a bad looking card.

Beautiful cards. I imagine the appeal of maximum cards was their difficulty and complexity. Ideally, you'd visit the scene of the stamp and buy an appropriate post card, then apply the stamp and get it postmarked. Time consuming unless you have someone do it for you, and many governments will sell you maximum cards they've prepared for you.

So, they're much less common than the stamps themselves. Plus they add an additional artistic element with the picture on the card. And you know that the stamp honoring that subject actually was "there" at some point -- which you don't know for most stamps. In fact, many countries' stamps have been printed in other countries and sold to collectors without ever even being sold in the home country. It would be hard to do that with stamps used for maximum cards which, presumably, have to be used in the country.

The rules of maximaphilately (spelling?) seem perfectly reasonable, but bending those rules doesn't bother me much. I think you just don't want the post card to look like it was produced for use as a maximum card. So it shouldn't look identical to the stamp. Much better to have to find a card that sort of matches. Placing the stamp on the card is easy to do. Then you find a post office. Takes time, doesn't it?

Even harder than a first day cover where you can use a blank envelope and put it in the mail slot for a postmark. I suppose you could purchase appropriate post cards ahead of time and mail them to the proper post office to be cancelled. I wonder if they would let them go through the mails, though, as many countries have rules about stamps only being put on the message side? So maybe you can't mail them but only get them postmarked and handed back to you?

I wonder if there are dealers who still produce maximum cards like these? I'd think it would be so time-consuming, no one would want to do it for long. Of course, this makes the cards even more desirable, doesn't it?

DrewM, Greetings:

I prefer potentially serendipitous maxi-cards, eg, when the card was being sent person-to-person with a message, and the card subject & stamp subject & postmark intersect.

When someone buys a postcard of some tourist spot and posts it nearby, you've already got two-out-of-three.




All USPS FDCs are now serviced in Kansas City.

Without independent information, there is no reason to think that any of today's post-issued maxi-cards have been anywhere but a print shop.




There are collectors doing their own.

Perhaps, as with FDCs, there are a few artists & small-scale dealers doing something unique on a subscription basis.

But the same tastes & motivations that have led the MNHOG fashion to dominate the market for individual stamps - and that have led the pristine-unaddressed-cacheted fashion to dominate the market for FDCs - would presumably have led the govt-issued 'mint' never-seen-the-mails maxi-cards to dominate that market, too.

The new enthusiasm for artisanal (which I prefer to pronounce 'artist anal') products - I recently tried an artist anal ketchup, and flew back to Heinz - will have a tough time clawing a foothold in maxi-cards, in part because the market is so small to begin with.

Make your own!

Perhaps the way forward is for stamp clubs that are already organizing event covers as a fundraiser to also try a maxi-card, and see who bites.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

DrewM, the whole idea of the maximumcard is to show the subject on the stamp and the picture on the card together including the relevant postmark. It is also important to the collector of these that the stamps' image and that of the card are the same, as close as possible.

Peter

Petert4522, you said:
"It is also important to the collector of these that the stamps' image and that of the card are the same, as close as possible."

Actually, no. It's the subject of the image, not the image itself, that is supposed to be "concordant, not necessarily the same".
A good maxicard is the one where the postcard image is not a simple enlargement of the stamp image (with or without country name, denomination, etc., reproduced on the postcard).
The point of the postcard is to give a different perspective, representation, image...of the same subject from the stamp.
For example, the subject "Planet Earth".

#maxicard #astronaut #cosmos

Many times, it is tolerated by most maximaphilists to have a maxicard where the subject is a painting, let's say, even if the postcard is nothing but an enlargement of the exact painting image depicted on the stamp.
Not even in slightly different colors, not even a detail of the painting; the exact image on the postcard, as the painting image on the stamp.
That is widely tolerated, although it's better to have the postcard bring a different view, or detail, if it's a painting.


#GeorgeWashington ; different painting, different image on stamp and postcard.

The image on a maxicard being an enlargement of the stamp is both lazy & safe ...

... and well-accepted, in a hobby firmly rooted in collect-to-the-album & collect-to-the-catalog.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Yes, ikeyPikey, both lazy & safe. Also, cheap, because they don't have to make the extra effort and expense to get a different picture for the postcard.

The "rule" at 3.2 says: "All postcards fully reproducing the postage stamp, that is
to say with perforation, face value, country name, are forbidden.
The picture must emphasize the subject of the postage stamp. "

But too many collectors are complacent enough to allow let themselves to be "dismissed/fooled" by "the postcard image being pretty much a simple enlargement of the image on the stamp".
With or without "perforation, face value, country name".
Let's not allow "the lazy approach" to "walk away on such technicalities".

======


#buckminsterfullerene


"Buckminsterfullerene derives from the name of the noted futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller. One of his designs of a geodesic dome structure bears great resemblance to C60; as a result, the discoverers of the allotrope named the newfound molecule after him. The general public, however, sometimes refers to buckminsterfullerene, and even Fuller's dome structure, as buckyballs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene

Let's revive the thread.
Why do YOU think that maximaphily isn't more popular with stamp collectors/philatelists?
Do you have any suggestion?

I think a lot a people do not like the rules attached to maximaphily.
They like some wiggle room. After all it is their hobby and collection. One should be free to decide for him or herself what one wants to collect.

Concerning rules:
Most of the times rules are made up, put in a rule book and the people who made them, hold on to them for dear life. Change is difficult. Often the set of rules is a few decades old and not up to date with modern times and thoughts.

The rules do not allow anny deviation, some will say that is why they are called rules and they are right.

There are many rules, descriptions and thoughts about stamps. But frankly it is often overwhelming for the normal collector, the boy or girl that simply wants to enjoy his hobby. These people do not want tho hear that their collection is not by the rules. They did not ask for that, They simply want to enjoy the hobby and share it with others.

Sticking to rules puts people of, be it for the right or wrong reasons.

Kind regards,

Johan.

Yes, Johan, thank you for expressing the same opinions like mine!
I have elaborated about that for many years, in many online threads.

Let's have rules for exhibiting (okay to be narrow) versus rules for collecting (okay to be flexible).

I cannot imagine the AFDCS (boy, am I setting myself up here!) having rules about what qualifies as an FDC, let alone a rule requiring a cachet, a rule requiring an FDOI slogan cancel, etc.

Perhaps the difference (just to mount my favorite hobby horse) is that FDC collecting pre-dates The MNHOG Tyranny, while maxicard collecting came along after we all went nuts.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey