A Little Quiz

Here's an interesting one. What's so special about this stamp?

The 20M was never issued...do you own one of the 16, you sly dog?

It was never issued. But that's only part of what makes it special.

And no, I don't on one. If only...

Must be some sort of reprint or nachdruck ? since the date at the bottom
looks like 1975

This is Saar D31. In Michel, there are some stamps that don't have a listed value because the publishers don't have enough info to set a value. But of the stamps that do have a listed catalog value...

This stamp has the highest CV in Michel's Germany Specialized catalog. MNH €250,000.

This is from a Dreyfus auction in June, 2011. I didn't check to see what it realized.

So how does this explain the 1975 date?

A German State Bavaria Scott type A12 ovwerprinted to be issued in Saar. It is not listed under Saar, but Scott notation says, "the 20M Type A12 was also overprinted in small quatities. It did not mention that it was unissued.

litho's guess might be right. The image in the 2011 catalogue has nothing at all in that location.

Just for fun, here is the image from the 2011 catalogue:



I looked a bit for the auction results and didn't find it (except for the super rarities which sold at the same auction).

But why, or rather, how, was a Bavarian stamp overprinted for Saar, and using the French spelling? I realize that German geography was complicated, and occasionally topologically implausible, but this is pushing things.

After World War I, France and the UK managed the Saar under a League of Nations mandate. Since stamps were needed for overprinting, and Bavaria was right next door, it doesn't seem too farfetched. I could imagine the victors taking what they needed.

[edit: Also, Bavaria's independent postal system ended March 31, 1920, so the stamps were superfluous at that point. All of this is subject to correction or clarification with better information.]

This is a reproduction cut-out from a Miniature sheet given away in the Saar Auction Catalogue 108 by the Arnold Ebel auction house in Frankfurt.

Very nice and scarce item.
If you want a scan of the sheet, just holler.

Londonbus1.....

That's funny. I pulled the image directly from Michel's electronic catalog software. I guess they cheated!

They cheated !

The sheet was printed by a company in Kaiserslautern in 1975 . I have a date of 2.4.76 with question mark for the auction.
The year on the stamp reads 1976 not 1975 as suggested earlier.





Londonbus1