Need Help With ID Of This German "Stamp"

I could not find a trace of this item:





Front and back images. Thanks.

Looks like it is a piece cut out from postal stationery - Scott will not list it. But it could be a postal card from around 1885

Peter

Thanks.

It seems very thin for a post card. Like a wrapper, is that possible and is this collectible?

Could of course be, and yes, it is collectible. You can always check a site like Delcampe and see what comes up

Peter

This is a postal stationery cutout, as has previously been mentioned.

Specifically, this is a "Rohrpost" envelope fragment. Michel catalogs the envelope as RU 1.

From the 1870's through WW2, Berlin had an extensive tube mail/Rohrpost system running through the city. You could mail a small, specifically-designed envelope, (such as from what your indium was cut), or a small postal card from one part of city to a receiving station somewhere else in the city. Letter or card was placed in a capsule, such as you use at the bank drive up station, and eventually. and efficiently, would reach its destination.

Unfortunately, specialist Germany collectors do not collect postal stationery cut outs, or "cut squares" as some U.S. collectors do with U.S. postal stationery. The reason is because postal stationery of the Germany area can take various formats (sizes, printing, flap shapes, or watermarks) which can only be identified by having the whole card or envelope.

Thanks for the details, collectible by collector's perhaps not, but the story you narrated makes them collectible to me.

I keep finding post card and stationary cut outs so will dedicate a section of my Germany collection to those items not found in the stamp catalogs.

There is a lot of German postal stationery to collect. If you find yourself specializing this is the catalog to use: