These may be considered precursors to official Polish airmail issues.
These large labels, inscribed "AERO-TARG:POZNAN,192!" ("Air Mart; Poznan, 1921"), have attached labels with the letters "T.A.B.R.O.M.I.K.".
This is an advertisement for the liqueur Firm of Tadeusz Bronislaw Mikolajczyk which organized the event.
Although not a Government issue, letters with this private issue were accepted by the Post Office.
They were designed by Wilhelm Rudy who worked for the airline and his initials WR appear on the stamps
A specific cancel was to be used in black or dark orange
Cancels in green, red, violet and grey are on forgeries and reprints
Printed in lithography. Perf. 11.5
50,000 sets were printed and they were valid until June 17, 1921.
25M Genuine Features
Forgeries & Reprints
Forgeries of the 100 M appeared very shortly after the expiry date and 2 types are noted.
The 25 M forgery appeared much later and only one type is known.
Forgeries of the 100 M are very plentiful but quite scarce for the 25 M.
However, “reprints” of the 25 M are common and in most cases very difficult to distinguish from the original.
I have not found reprints or information of the 100 M.
25M Forgery Features
25M Reprint
The 25M can be found with a variety of tab variations
100M Genuine Features
100M Forgeries
The 100M has 2 Types of forgeries
100M Reprints
Note that in the far right top and middle tabs just below the last dots there is a small guide line in the perfs typical of a reprint.
This item showed up on a prominent auction with a hefty price tag.
Cancels
Covers
After the last delivery on June 16, 1921, philatelist were clamouring for covers which quickly escalated in value.
A prime opportunity for creators of fakes using both genuine and forged stamps.
Despite being scarce, online sites have numerous offers of “rare covers”
The original rules regarding the use of the stamps was quite clear.
1. For the duration of the fair, the firm would deliver mail at a reasonable price.
2. Per flight they would be limited to 100 Kg each of letters and packages
3. They could only accept items marked urgent with an EXPRESS label attached.
4. Postage including the express charge must be paid with regular postage.
5. The airmail charge would be paid by stamps issued by the airline company at a rate prescribed by the post office.
6. The special stamps would be cancelled at the receiving post office with a special cancel supplied by the airline company
Fake covers abound on auction sites and even relatively legitimate auctions provide them.
Here is a typical sample
Here we clearly have a 100 M forgery stamp.
The statues in the shield do not match the genuine cancel
There are no regular postage stamps or the EXPRESS label as required.
A very informative post !
ReplyDeleteI've just begun collecting early Poland (up to Piłsudski 's death in 1935), and your post saved me from an unwise eBay purchase. Thank you.
I would be very interested in learning more about the Poznan and Gniezno provisionals -- the 2nd Warsaw provisionals, too -- if they are issues you've studied. In any event, thanks for the education.