A Nice Bulk Lot Of Bavaria Stamps On Pieces

Being a fan of socked-on-the-nose handstamp cancels, I'm always on the lookout for bulk lots of pre-WWII stamps with cancels, especially of stamps on piece, as they allow you to see the full cancel, not just what's on the stamp. I pick up lots as I see them and squirrel them away for my retirement years.

I noticed this group in the "Stamps in Cigar Boxes & Similar" section of Paradise Valley's latest discount sale, meaning that it had not sold at the opening bid at least one or more of their "auctions". I put that in quotes as they are one of Stamp Auction Network's "auction houses" that actually is mostly selling their own inventory rather than the majority being consigned material. There tends to be an incredible amount of the same lots being offered month after month after month. A couple times a year, they offer lots from a recent sale at a discounted rate.

I've picked up a few of these cigar box lots from them over the past several years, and I have yet to be disappointed, the last being a bulk lot of Swiss standing Helvetias that I showed here:

https://goscf.com/t/48761

After looking through the images of this Bavaria lot, I'm actually surprised that it didn't sell in the original sale. There's a lot of quantity here, and some great aesthetic handstamp cancels. It's virtually all material that's a dime a dozen for mint stamps, but used are a bit tougher, and on piece even more difficult yet. Imagine if these were all intact covers! (I wish...)

I had hoped that there might be some hidden treasures, and while I haven't done any flyspecking yet, I found several 1m and 2m denominations which are a bit better, as well as numerous imperfs which are difficult to find legitimately used.

That's a really nice lot. I particularly like the Germania stamps with the overprints. A nice selection of position pieces including one with a HAN number; not common in used condition.

The King Ludwig stamps are philatelically interesting with some values having 3 or 4 different types (the number of types depends on which reference source you are using).

They all look like CTO's

It wouldn't surprise me if some are CTOs, but there are also pieces where you can see portions of the envelope/advertisement lettering on the cut out piece or on its back. Also, most are on thicker envelope/postcard stock rather than the thin paper used for the ganged event/CTO sheets you frequently see with entire sets.

I have to agree with perf12, most of it looks to be CTO.

A lot of Kitzingen cancels.

Picture 2 and 7 look to have some genuine used material.

If the price was right, I would have bought it to.

This kind of material can help you, to build a nice reference collection

Different types. rotary or plate print. Han numbers. Plate flaws. overprint types etc etc.

Having reference material is always better then a picture in a catalogue.

Have fun and enjoy going through this lot

Vast majority look to be c.t.o. Postally used German and Bavarian stamps do not have consistent, perfectly inked and applied cancellations, in my experience

CTO or not, I bought them primarily for the cancel aesthetics, and the per-piece cost was so nominal, it's somewhat of a moot point. When I actually sit down to process them, I will separate out what appear to be postally used vs. CTO, and perhaps post individual closeups for opinion.

For the aesthetic collector as opposed to the purist, these make great album spot fillers if your want something a bit more interesting than the usual mint examples of the stamps.