Opinions Needed - Germany/Soviet Zone Monetary Reform Overprints

@danstamps54 - given the very high value of this one if the overprint is authentic, my reading of Michel specialized, and the factors you mention, I fully believe it to be fake.

I also have a number of them where Michel mentions no valid overprints were done on those values.

This area is a minefield for sure!

~Greg

Floortrader,

I understand and respect a worldwide collector's approach. For some of the countries I collect, I'm a one-and-done collector.

I got pulled into the Soviet Occupied Germany (SBZ) rabbit hole by a collector-friend. For a while I was collecting SBZ by paper and gum type until the stamps I was missing got pretty pricey. Who wants to look at pages of the same stamp? Oh... it's the gum type or paper that is different. It makes Washington-Franklin issues look varied.

The only point I was trying to make is that the visual identification cues we normally use to determine if a stamp is authentic or a forgery don't work well with the SBZ overprints..

Even the SBZ specialists I know shy away from the black hole of trying to authenticate all of the overprints. I suppose there are some brave souls who venture in.... I got a complete set of "Sommerfeld" overprints because it is basically my last name. I declared victory and moved on.

Dan

Greg,

It really is a crap shoot. You never know for sure until BPP says it's so!

If my "Sommerfeld" overprints were authentic, they would price into four figures. I didn't get them expertized and most likely won't. The time and money to have it done doesn't, for me, justify a return that has a less than one percent chance of succeeding.

It is just one of the more frustrating minefields of German stamps.

Dan