Content of Michel Catalog Briefe Deutschland Part II 2023/2024:

Price quotations for covers with joint issues of the Allied occupation zones, Berlin and Brandenburg, Soviet Zone, GDR, Berlin (West), postal war, Saarland and OPD Saarbrücken, French Zone, American Zone and British Zone, Federal Republic of Germany

Award Winner Catalog Gross Vermeil 2012 @IPHLA, Gross Vermeil 2014 Rang I

Description:

• This new edition about German stamps on covers, starting with the year of 1945, contains several specially exciting chapters regarding postal history and has once again been thoroughly edited and revised.
• Numerous modifications and text additions, particularly concerning AM postage stamps, the French Zone, the manually applied printings of the Soviet occupied zone and the bar shape and grid overprints of the Bizone
• The revision of MICHEL price quotations – as always arranged by single, multiple and mixed franking – led to modifications in most collection areas, particularly the occupation issues of the allies, GDR, Berlin (West) and the Federal Republic of Germany.
• More than 8600 high-resolution colour photos and approx. 29,000 price quotations
• New issues of the Deutsche Post up to September 2023

The catalog is organized according to collection areas. Cataloging within these sections is chronological, based on issue date. Special stamp types, like official stamps, are located at the end of a collection area section. In order to assist collectors organize their stamps, numerous illustrations are provided, as well as information on similar stamps to help avoid possible mix-ups.

Samples like this one are the perfect form of representation of stamps. Several extraordinary aspects make this letter, which was sent from Freiburg in the French Zone to Basle in June of 1949, a very special collector’s item: Being a registered letter with Weight Level 2 (21 to 40 g) sent to a foreign country, it was mailed with six identical 15-pfennig issues of French Zone MiNo. 19. The neat arrangement and the clear postmarks contribute to the beauty of this piece of postal history. The value of such specimens is mainly based on their aesthetic attraction and is not suitable for any schematic classification. As a foundation for the classification and evaluation of such items, this new edition of MICHEL Covers, however, will be a very helpful assistant to collectors of this – perhaps most beautiful – form of philately Photo: French Zone Baden, registered letter mailed to a foreign country (Switzerland), 21 to 40 g, mailed on 5 June 1949. Private collection

Target Group:

Stamp collectors specialized in stamps of Germany, experts, dealers, thematic collectors, study groups, teachers

Additional Information:

21st Edition, in colour
750 pages
155 mm x 230 mm, hardcover
On sale: 6 October 2023
Language: German
ISBN: 978-3-95402-446-9

Press Release:

In the year of 1840, stamps were created to be put on letter envelopes. Thus, covers are the „natural environment“ of stamps. The most significant stamps are therefore issues used for the transport of the most common type of letters, which usually is an in-country letter of Weight Level 1. That’s how it was in 1840, and that’s how it still is today.

Even though initially covers were seen mainly as a source of cancelled stamps, they were soon kept and then collected as whole covers. The MICHEL Covers Germany, the second volume of which has now been published, serves as a guide that leads collectors through the wealth of options provided by various postal systems in the past and presence. Its focus is on the post- World-War-Two period.

Particularly the first years – from 1945 to about 1950 – are an intriguing period from the historical and postal historical point of view. Most text modifications and complements presented in this 21st Edition of MICHEL Covers Germany pertain to that period, particularly regarding AM postage stamps, the French Zone, the manually applied printings of the Soviet occupation zone as well as the bar shape and grid overprints of the Bizone.

The listing of new stamps issued by the German Postal System between the autumn of 2021and September of 2023 was also supplemented. Even though many mailing options have been discontinued by now, and the option to use stamps for mailing letters has been limited, collectors of covers will still find many opportunities to collect interesting prepaid mail.

We want to thank our large team of assistants for the meticulous work they put into the processing and improvement of this MICHEL edition. And we thank our readers who sent us suggestions for improvement in the past years. Their active commitment and support are essential for the continuous improvement of MICHEL Covers Germany.

At the IBRA in Essen a representative of Deutsche Post AG stated that the German Postal System still processes approximately 1.4 billion letters mailed with stamps annually. So collectors will not run out of material in the near future. And it isn’t hard to make your own contribution to the letter-writing culture.

Schwaneberger Publishing House
The Editorial Team

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