Second Agricultural Exhibition In Windhoek, German Sw Africa

I love getting back from an extended vacation and finding goodies in my mailbox!

Here's a rare one -- a private postcard issued in German Southwest Africa to commemorate the Second Agricultural Exhibition in Windhoek, 20-21 June 1902.




I was pleasantly surprised to find this on ebay. I wasn't even aware it existed until after some heavy digging -- it's not listed in Michel, Borek, or Einfeldt (though it IS in Frech's Privatpostkarten Katalog!).

Unfortunately, this copy doesn't have the exhibition cancel, but it's a nice find nonetheless.

Super nice find there I'm green with envy :) I don't believe I have seen this one either in the books or on ebay. I don't have any GSWA posties either, but I did manage to find a few nice oldies on ebay this week *crosses fingers* maybe I will win them tonight.

Chief

Well I was sniped at 15 sec left in the auction. I really thought I was "over paying" for the posties, but I guess someone wanted them more than I did. Most of the time when it comes to cards I'm more of the subject matter than the actual CV of the item. If it has a really good event or historical date tied to it then I will also up the bid a bit. It seems there have been a great deal of lots on ebay the past few weeks on cards. Many with nice WWI or WWII photo cards or political cards, but I guess there are just as many people out there that collect on the same ideas as I do.

Chief

Chief I told this story before but I will again...we were at a flea market and my wife was looking at a box of 25 cent postcards..she pulled out a card with a small kaisers yacht on it and asked if I wanted it...i said ok...turned out it was a German New Guinea with a Seapost cancel..i sent a scan to a fellow who was bidding on similar material on ebay and he sent me a check for $150.00 ! That will teach certain post card dealers who put foreign post cards in their junkboxes !!

One thing I've learned about collecting German Colonies is to never write-off any card or stamp as worthless or of minimal value without doing my homework. There were many small post office scattered through remote areas of the Pacific and Africa, some of which were only in existence for days or weeks. Cancels for some of these are extremely rare.

Consider these (and no, I can't claim ownership!)

Two identical stamps -- German New Guinea Michel 9.



The first was canceled at Rabaul, and the second at nearby Buka about 11 days prior.

The first can be had on ebay for about €5. The second is only seen at auction about every 10-15 years -- most recent I know of was at Vogenbeck Auktion about 10 years ago. Final hammer price -- €11,250.

In the mail today, two copies of this card with the rare exhibition cancel! They're probably of philatelic origin, as they were both mailed to the same person.

Any plans to hit the exhibit circuit with these? You have some really nice stuff!

Not really. For one, I've never even been to a show, so I wouldn't know where to begin. And second, I'm moving to Japan in about a month, so exhibiting would be complicated for the foreseeable future.

But thanks for the compliment! I sometimes feel like I'm collecting backwards -- I still have a lot of holes in my basic German collection from about 1872-1932, but I spend most of my time and money finding the more off-the-wall, buried-in-a-footnote stuff.

I just noticed something. The exhibition handstamp is spelled wrong -- "Austellungsplatz" instead of "Ausstellungsplatz".

I recently picked-up the variety of this card that I was missing -- the one without poem on the back (Frech PP3 C1).


And since the links to some of my images above broke when I changed the structure of my website, here are scans of the copies I have of the more common variety, that with the poem on the back (Fr. PP3 C2).