Stamps! Stamps! Stamps! (Franz Josip and Austria-Hungary, Weimar, Bayern, Danzig)

This week the mail river washed up on my shore two items. (This time I didn't photograph the envelopes themselves, but in the first photo you can see everything I received). Finally! Too many of my stamp purchases are in transit, I'm tired, I suffer from waiting and impatience! This is not the case when contemplating the river and the ever-flowing water is calming.

The first letter arrived quickly. It was a very (very!) cheap lot, a mix of Austrian and German marks from the early 20th century, which cost exactly one US dollar (the shipping cost was 25% more than the cost of the lot itself).

In fact, I bought this lot solely for the substantial 10-stamp block with a purple 1-haller stamp and an interesting old postmark cancellation. (As the 19th century wore on, more and more countries adopted standard round postmarks, but in the mid-19th century you could still find a wide variety of forms.)

Looks convincing, doesn't it? Collectors value rarity, and several stamps joined together in a chain - this is by default rarer than individual stamps - are always more expensive. In addition, such philatelic material diversifies the appearance of the pages of your album, which is also nice. Anyway - I bought this mix for one block of stamps, and got everything else absolutely free as a bonus! And then there were several stamps of poor quality, with torn edges, which I immediately put in the trash ... just kidding! I put them in the album with duplicates and spare stamps.

...and there were some good stamps that I didn't have, or had in different versions. Check out this engraving by Koloman Moser of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in his younger years.

This is part of a large commemorative series of Austrian stamps from 1908/1913. Well, I plan to tell you about Moser separately sometime. He deserves it. I suppose you haven't heard of this name? But of course everyone has heard of Gustav Klimt... and only him. Lol. The Austrian Secession consisted of little more than one Klimt, hehe...

Yes! Coming back to the stamp - I already have four of the same stamp, and I'm not going to stop there. But thanks to this purchase, I now have a nicer version - where the portrait is not disfigured by the ugly cancellation. It's much nicer to look at such a stamp in an album - if you consider it a work of art...

Perforated stamps? Damaged material, probably worth less? -- you will say. -- Nothing of the sort! Marks in the form of such regular holes are an indicator that standard stamps were used by official officials, the government, the army, the post office, etc. By receiving perforation like this, a standard stamp turns into a service stamp -- which makes it rarer and increases its status. There are collectors who specifically collect different types of perforations. This can be quite fascinating! But I deliberately do not look in this direction. Although, of course, I add an extra copy of a stamp -- a service stamp -- to my collection with great pleasure.

Well, as for the third stamp... you'll laugh now - and you have every right to do so. This is a stamp of Bavaria, with the image of the Bavarian King Ludwig III. He reigned from 1913 to 1918, until the abolition of the kingdom, and was the last representative of the Wittelsbach dynasty on the Bavarian throne. In November 1918, he abdicated the throne and emigrated to Austria. The overprint on the royal stamp from the old stock reads "Folkstaat Bayern" - and means "People's State of Bavaria", a republic. And you will laugh because stamps with Ludwig III cause me a terrible idiosyncrasy, an organic reflex of rejection... I do not buy them and do not want to see them in my album. (In any case, this concerns the standard stamp releases with this portrait of him; I have no problems with other Bavarian stamps, they not only suit me, but also make me happy with their appearance).

Well, let me round off my blog here. The 2nd letter contained three lots with Danzig stamps, thats a different story to tell. See you next time!