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My particular area of interest is Germany from the Empire period through to the end of the Weimar Republic. I'd be grateful for views and advice on the issue of identifying war issues of the Germania High Values, especially the 3 Mark black/ violet Michel Nos. 96 A1a and b and 96AII, both 26:17 perf holes. (The 25:17 are obviously easy to identify.) Despite its description as the wartime print (Kriegsdruck) 96AII is listed as only appearing from May 1919, which means the "peace printing" (Friedensdruck) of this stamp continued in use well into 1919. Many of the later issues of 96AI show all the features of other wartime issues - poorer quality print and paper but are categorised as the less valuable 96AI rather than 96AII, and I have several copies of 96AIb, expertised as such, that shows these characteristics. On the other hand I have seen stamps for sale, expertised as 96AII, which predate the earliest use according to Michel of 4.5.1919.
Is there in fact any real difference between 96AI and AII, or any of the other late used peace printings for that matter? Later shades of the 1 Mark carmine-red 94AI seem to approach that of the AII stamps (paler and pinker to my eyes) and some of the 2 mark blues after about 1915 have the greenish blue/ cobalt appearance of the 95BII which date from April 1916; all the earlier copies of 95AI I have exhibit a clearer black-blue shade.
I'd also be interested to know details of the history of these isues, especially the reasons for using different perforation gauges which seemed to have been used almost randomly on all of these 1 - 5 mark stamps: a brief introduction for the unwatermarked DR stamps around 1902 - 04, then a reappearance for the watermarked stamps on very different dates variously from 1915 - 1919 for each of the values. There is obviously a complex situation behind this. |
