The "With Attached Blank Field" German Yachts

Here's another oddity from the collection — the "mit anhängendem Leerfeld" German Yachts.

This is a classic case of seeing something in the catalog and wondering, what do they mean by that? At some point between 2007-2013, Michel added listings in several of the German colonies that stated only "mit anhängendem Leerfeld", or "with attached blank field". I largely ignored these listings until I started building new album pages for these issues, and I set out to see what they were. As it turns out, they're a perforation oddity!

The sheets of the lower face value Yacht Issues are pretty standard. They were printed in 10x10 sheets which were then perforated, like so:

As you can see, it's a pretty normal 10x10 arrangement. The sheets can vary slightly in which margins are perforated (in this case, the bottom) by the machine, but they're all pretty standard.

Which brings us to the "mit anhängendem Leerfeld" listings (Michel suffix "L"). These are stamps from the left margin of certain printings, almost all late printings (1917-1923), which have attached at left a margin that has erroneously been perforated at left, like so:


The exact reason for this oddity isn't clear. It's likely a case of sheets that were normally perforated on a machine designed for single, 10x10 sheets, being perforated on a machine designed to perforate pairs of 10x10 sheets.

These copies command a significant premium in Michel. They are known to exist for the following:


The unpriced used Kiautschou MiNr. 29 a L is currently up for sale on ebay with a price of 1,990 €.

Here are a few from my collection.

Karolinen MiNr. 21 L / MiNr. 21 Pair

Karolinen MiNr. A 21 L / MiNr. A 21 Pair

Kamerun MiNr. 23 II b L (x2) / MiNr. 23 II b (x4) Block of 6

Samoa MiNr. 20 L / MiNr. 20 Pair

Samoa MiNr. 21 L / MiNr. 21 Pair

Samoa MiNr. 22 L / MiNr. 22 Pair

Wow, great info. Thank you so much. To me (and many others I'm sure) it would never occur that a simple piece of salvage (even with extra perforation) can add such a high premium.

Thanks PostmasterGS for this information that I have neglected so far.
I started looking for similar examples.
Unfortunately for my Rheinland-Pfalz (French Zone) stamps I have not found information / quotations (??) in the Michel catalog:




although in German Allied Occup. (Bizone) they are mentioned:



For the stamp from the Inflation Period, I don't know if it can fall into this category (lack of horizontal and partially vertical perforation):

"In Markengröße" means the blank area needs to be the size of the stamp.

Hi Germania
The Rheihland-Pfalz stamps have the same size.

This was a problem for the Postal Offices because forgers were printing stamps on these blank spaces . Switzerland started to print a large colorful "X" in these blank spaces or they would punch a large circle hole thru these blank spaces on the sheets .Later they moved the blank space to the center and it became a speciality item to collect .

That is the story I was told at a stamp club meeting ,later I learned that ,printing all the way across gave the sheet a odd total value for accounting and it was better to have blank spaces to round out the value of each sheet for accounting and tracking purposes to even out .