German Stamp From 1948 Hannover

Can you help me to find this stamp from Germany 1948 overprint 16 Jena 1 ?

This is a Soviet Zone hand overprint. Jena was in Oberpostdirektion/district 16 (OPD Erfurt). Michel lists 108 different overprints for OPD 16, including 5 for Jena.

Because of their technically primitive nature, and because the HOP's were used for such a short time (making them valuable to collectors) the hand overprints were widely forged. So, this is a stamp you would need to have expertized to prove it is genuine. The hand overprint devices were simply reused packet card cancellors.

bookbndrbob is correct.

These overprints are District Hand Stamps (Bezirksstempel) that were created by a currency revaluation. No new stamps were available at the time of the currency revaluation so the current stamps were hand stamped to show that the new rate was paid (10 to 1).

The stamps were valid only from June 24, 1948 until new overprints were issued on July 3, 1948.

Because they were valid for such a short period of time, only expertized stamps are considered genuine. Jena 1 was one of the most forged issues.

Most of the overprints seen are forgeries or philatelic courtesy cancels produced after the fact. My avatar is another example of a Bezirksstempel. It hasn't been expertized. 99% come back with a bad certificate. It's an expensive and time consuming process so I didn't bother. If I'm lucky it's a philatelic cancel.

Still these hand stamps are an interesting part of German philately.

Dan