Danzig Help

What is a short explanation of Danzig politically? Do I understand it was an independent city (Gdansk) from WWI to WWII? What was its political status? How/why did they have such indepndence?

This link tells quite a bit about the subject. hope it helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig

Bravery of the Post Office employees in that article:

Polish civilian Post Office employees had been trained and had a cache of weapons, mostly pistols, three light machine guns and some hand grenades, when they defended the Polish Post Office for 15 hours. They were executed upon their surrender, against international law. The Polish military forces in the city held out until the 7th September.

I had a Danzig collection many years ago. It's a fascinating area to collect. I'm annoyed I disposed of it, as a good collection is very difficult to put together.

jubelee is absolutely right.
Danzig and Memel is a collection as fascinating but far and difficult to build.
The period of Danzig from 1920 to 1939, there are hundreds of varieties, and cancellations are often uncertain.
Danzig has a philatelic expert official.
You can collect new ones (most varieties) or envelope. I do not recommend collecting stamps used loose.
A specialized collection of Danzig can last a lifetime, you can start with very cheap parts and fun is guaranteed.
There are specialized catalogs as well as Michel.

Federico

Some flying machines, and an upside down ship :

Are any of our Danzig fans willing to comment on these stamps and cancels?

I recently decided to branch out from unused Danzig, into used, and these are from my most recent lot. I apologize for the white background; these came to me on a page and I still haven't dealt with that...

Let me know if you suspect forgeries. You won't hurt my feelings...

A mix of gray and violet burelage...some points up, some points down, and one with none.













And the one I suspect the most...

Not qualified to comment, but some nice examples,
some to add to my moire/burelage examples,
I hadn't spotted those before.
I make them:

SG39 (A)
SG19
SG40e (star cancel unk)
SG38(A)
SG40(A)

assuming last two on lilac background

3 recommendations:
The Danzig Philatelist
The Danzig Postmark Catalog Vol's. 1,2,3 by Klaus Wolff
The GPS.

Michel does a VERY good job on these but their are MANY Verities of these overprints!

The "Star" Cancel looks VERY suspicious but not being an expert on Danzig Cancels I would not say I'm sure. I also had my Father look at it (German Collector since 1938) and he has never seen it either.

That can't be a good sign.

Of the twenty or so stamps in the lot, I'm fairly comfortable (based mostly on caffeine and false bravado) that all but two or three are genuine stamps...it is the cancels that I'm most concerned about.

When I decided to pay more attention to used Danzig, I went through hundreds of used examples that I already had, and found relatively few with nice, legible cancels. Way fewer than I would have expected. Then I started looking at auction lots, and still didn't find an overabundance. And VERY few from other post offices in the area. The occasional Zoppot, and the rest Danzig.

So when I found an old album page, and half of the 20 or so stamps had nice, legible cancels, I was curious. Could be a collector's loving assemblage; could be a bunch of forged cancels. Could be both.

Thanks.

C.

These are some of the more common known forged Danzig PM Dates:

Danzig: 10.8.83, 26.01.20.
Stutthof (Danzig): 28.1.20

Thanks for that, rev!

C.

I have 13 stamps from Daznig, ill post some pictures up in a little bit,
to see what you fellows have to say about them.

Here are the ones I have, let me know what you think
#1

#2

#3

#4-Anyone know what period this might have been from? German occupation I assume?

#4 is the same general era, but a "postage due" stamp. Danzig stamps have visual appeal, don't you think?

C.

kool, thanks for the ID'
yeah I find them really interesting even though they
look sort of "simple"