573 Pair On Registered Cover To Germany-Anyone Think Its Good?

I think it would be fun to read comments from SCF folks.






Found this as ebay item: 284486744206

Ends 10-17-2021 8:01 PM (PDT).

Lets focus on the item not the seller.

The blind oval cancel looks correct and the damage seems to be authentic. Was this the same Walther Funk that was the Nazi Reich Minister for Economic Affairs?

That answer will need to come from someone else. However that may be a reason driving the price.

Seems unlikely; Funk at the time was editor of the centre-right financial newspaper the Berliner Börsenzeitung. This cover was addressed to a town more then 4 hours away. So unless he was on vacation there.....

Nazi's take vacations too.

This is something that needs to be seen up close and personal vs. a scan. A UV light would be helpful.

The franking makes absolutely no sense. Indemnity for loss was likely quite limited at this time; my 1935 Guide limits it to $100 with a fee of 60c. Now high values were sent to stamp dealers to get nice used examples, back to the time of the Columbian dollar values. But domestic controlled mail (where the recipient returns the postage used) would have already provided a fair number of nice used examples of the $5 as are found today. And this cover was sent in 1930, during the Great Depression; spending $10 on postage for just getting used examples is certainly odd.

The staining looks about right but we really don't know when that happened in the scheme of things. There were probably two stamps on the cover originally, which doesn't tell us much. What I don't like about this is that the blind double oval cancel is still very crisply struck whereas the stamps are badly stained from soaking, with the markings on the envelope also showing soak damage. So I am calling shenanigans. Your mileage may vary.

I will add that the double oval does NOT tie the stamps to the cover. I also agree there is no valid $10 postage rate especially with a back-stamped envelope of this size.







Anyone else wish to chime in?

The stamps are not tied to the cover. It also has a "Nachgebühr" stamp - Postage Due. So even $10 was not enough? Maybe the original stamps fell off in transit?

I think the key problem is that there is no way to determine whether the pair originated on cover. The double mute oval is appropriate, but does not tie the stamps to the cover, as others have noted.

There is no rate requiring anything close to $10. The marking about postage due is curious. I think that someone replaced the actual stamps used with this pair. Even if the $5 pair were intentionally used, the postage due marking doesn't then make sense.

So, how heavy would this small envelope have been to require $10 postage for a registered letter in 1930?

Also, according to internet sources, US$10 in 1930 is the equivalent of $151.44 in today's dollars.

Sold for $78. I don't think it was faked. To what end?

@bookbndrbob

I do not know whether the US Post Office provided insurance on registration.

However, the cover has a German stamp "Nachgebühr." This indicates there was a fee due on this item.

Morning all,

I actually had this item in hand but thru it into a lot of misc. items recently sold to a dealer friend. I think the staining may have been added to obfiscate the obvious. It is an over doctored cover. My guess is the pair of $5.00 stamps are from a bank tag. There is a real good rest of the story behind this item we may never know unless its creator speaks up. It ain't me. I found it in a cheap lot years ago.

Wouldn't they be worth more on a bank tag? Or a post-1932 registered cover?

I mean if you were going to doctor it up including the damage/staining why choose this route?

The cover and the stamps were damaged and available...and the usage looked plausible, at least to the creator, and maybe someone who'd pay a good price for it.

Why would a postal clerk use a blind oval cancel on the front and switch to a date hand cancel to mark the seals on the back?

Why is the water damage (coffee?) basically surrounding just the stamps?