Germany & Colonies Philatelic Society
The year 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the first year of operation of the Germany & Colonies Philatelic Society following the amalgamation of the Germany & Colonies Stamp Club (established 1947) and the Stockton German Study Group (1960).

The G&CPS celebrated its inaugural year in 1964 with the first Germania Posta philatelic exhibition held in Stockton.

Title: Forerunner
Posted By: Giles du Boulay (giles.duboulay@btinternet.com)
Posted On: 01/02/2011 at 09:06:41
Message: Hello Geoff, In my experience dealers use the term 'forerunner' loosely and in a number of ways. Normally the term applies to stamps used provisionally in a newly established territory before it has its own specific issues e.g. German Empire stamps used in German Foreign POs & Colonies, the Free City of Danzig etc. Such stamps if strictly falling in the time frame for such provisional use as forerunners are often catalogued highly. Sometimes, however,the term is applied simply to stamps used in a territory before it changed administration, sometimes long before any change of administration was envisaged. I have often seen for example covers with stamps cancelled in Danzig before WW1 called 'Vorläufer'. Collectors of Danzig may or may not wish to collect material from before (or indeed after) the Free City period, but such so-called forerunners have no special value on account of that, other than the market value resulting from such collectors competing for them. Your two covers are probably from towns now in the Oblast of Kaliningrad - Kassuben/Ilyinskoye & Groß Skaisgirren/Bolschakowo - both having fallen to the Soviet Union at the end of WW2. They seem therefore only to be 'forerunners' in the sense that to collectors of that Oblast or perhaps a wider Russian area, they represent usage in those towns when they belonged to Ostpreußen.They may well be interesting covers in themselves, but I would say that their status as 'forerunners' is of little extra value and rather misleading. Kind regards Giles
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Message Thread
TITLE POSTED BY DATE TIME
Forerunner Geoff Hern 30/01/2011 14:48:45
    Forerunner Giles du Boulay 01/02/2011 09:06:41
    Forerunner Geoff Hern 01/02/2011 09:40:51
    Forerunner Giles du Boulay 02/02/2011 10:04:50
Germany & Colonies Philatelic Society