This Is Probably Not A Price Mark For This Polish Stamp(S) ?

Hello,

I just went through our old family album again and found several marks which are placed to more rare stamps by the collector many years ago. In most cases I understand the mark, but here I didn't find any stamps from Poland looking similar and being that valuable?

Just want to be sure here in the forum that this is probably not a price mark?

thank you.

Hi Stamperix.
I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you referring to the '1000' pencil notation under these stamps?
What you have here are pretty common Polish stamps issued in 1923, both of minimal value, even according to my 2003 Scott's catalogue.
They are issue #s 166 and 167 in the catalogue.

maybe it means 1000 pengo !

Hello James,

yes exactly that was my question. There are some pencil notations in the album, and in all other cases the were made to mention the price (to that time) of a rare stamp. Only in this case I was not sure, as I also only found common stamps of that Poland issue. So this is not the price but probably the stamp number in the album.

Just wanted to be sure as I am selling some countries I don't collect. I have some other question soon about overprintings in different countries, here I will open a new thread.

Thank you again.

Poland had inflation in the early 1990s, common stamps such as the 2 illustrated would have been worth 1000 inflation zlotys at the time

Hello again,

I just had a closer look again at these two stamps and just have the following additional questions:

- could it be that the old collector thought that they would be special because of the perforation?

the 200 stamp has like a step higher and lower in the horizontal perforation, the 300 stamp has perf 10 at the horizontal and perf 12 at the vertical side. I don't have a catalogue for those Polish stamps, so I don't know if perforation variation is common to that time?

Scott suggests Perf 9 to 14½ and compound, for these issues.

The short answer is that, yes, perf varieties are VERY common on these large eagle issues. The "Polskie Znaki Pocztowe" handbook of 1960 (still the major source of information on pre-war issues) lists a total of 71 perf combinations for all 10 denominations (including the two 25Mk. types)

The main contemporary perf. study in English of the large eagles is by W. Maslowski & A. Droar in the June-August 1973 issues of "Stamp Monthly" entitled "Austrian Machines used on Polish Perforations (especially on 'Large Eagles') during Polish Mark Period". Quite a mouthful but it says it all. The following is a summary of the article.

After WWI, war reparations of money & goods were made to the allies by Austria & Germany. Among these were 18 old perforation machines from Austria to Poland, 15 of which were used for the large eagles. These dated from 1858-1870's & were in good working order insofar as they perforated stamps but not in the constant manner to which we are accustomed to today due to two main factors. 1)The metal in the machines had fatigued after 40-50 years of use & hence the perforation pins had lost some strength. 2)To save time The Poles perforated 20 sheets at a time whereas the Austrians had only perforated 10. These factors contributed to the pins splaying outwards, inwards or out of alignment during use to produce irregular perforations - a fact which would have been irrelevant in that inflation era of stamp production.

The authors were able to study large blocks & sheets & so were able to see the variety of perfs within one sheet. They do quote one sheet perforated 12 to 12.5 but extending 11 to 18 within the sheet, they do stress that this is an extreme example.

Here's an illustration of a block from the article showing the types of perf problems inherent in this issue

thank you very much! this is interesting "perforation history" and a great image of stamps. We are used to it that the perforation is made so fine and good, and then it's nice to see such a different thing :). I will keep my two interesting stamps.