Stamps

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » 08 Feb 2006 15:36

These colonial themed stamps might be of interest to you.

/Marcus

Chris Dale · Post by **Chris Dale** » 18 Feb 2006 15:28

Hi Marcus,
Thanks for those. Although I'm not a stamp collector myself, it seems on certain parts of the web the stamps of the German colonies get as much attention as we give the military aspects of the colonies here.
On the http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de/ website you can see stamps for the different colonies under "Schutzgebeite" and "Briefmarken".
Cheers
Chris

Reichskolonialamt · Post by **Reichskolonialamt** » 23 Feb 2006 15:28

An interesting question is, why there have been different stamps in the South-Sea...

Everywere else there were one kind of stamps for one administration, but not there. Until now, nobody can give me a clear answer to that.

Togo, Kamerun, Deutsch-Ost, Deutsch-Südwest, Samoa, Kiautschou :
1 Gouverneur<=> 1 stamp

South-Sea/Neu-Guinea:
1 Gouverneur<=> stamps for Mariannen, Neu-Guinea, Karolinen + Marshall-Inseln

A.W. Carson · Post by **A.W. Carson** » 25 Feb 2006 01:21

Reichskolonialamt wrote:An interesting question is, why there have been different stamps in the South-Sea...

Everywere else there were one kind of stamps for one administration, but not there. Until now, nobody can give me a clear answer to that.

Togo, Kamerun, Deutsch-Ost, Deutsch-Südwest, Samoa, Kiautschou :
1 Gouverneur<=> 1 stamp

South-Sea/Neu-Guinea:
1 Gouverneur<=> stamps for Mariannen, Neu-Guinea, Karolinen + Marshall-Inseln

My guess is that they probably constituted postal districts. There is a sizeable body of philatelic literature on German colonial stamps and German postal system (Reichpost ?). For instance, in the United States, postal districts overlap and do not always coincide with municipal boundaries. Some places have a post office, yet are unincorporated. With regard to Deutsch-Neuguinea, it was regarded as the "old protectorate" vs. the more newly accquired "Islands territory" (Insenlgebiet, I believe, "auf Deutsch". The exception to that would probably be the Marshall Islands, which were accquired earlier than the other islands.

Chris Dale · Post by **Chris Dale** » 25 Feb 2006 04:02

I found this photo (I think it was on ebay) a while ago. Notice the horn below the eagle in brass. Could this be a colonial postman's helmet?
Cheers
Chris

Karstenh83 · Post by **Karstenh83** » 25 Feb 2006 14:51

It could be a tropical helmet of a postman but it could be a fake, too.
I´m not an expert enough for the topic of uniforms and helmet in the colonies, unfortunately.

But I have found in my collection this photo and the tropical helmet of that postman looks different between to your helmet.
The tropical helmet of the postman, who works in Cameroon, is larger than yours.

All the best

Karsten

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Karstenh83 · Post by **Karstenh83** » 25 Feb 2006 14:52

and the last one

Chris Dale · Post by **Chris Dale** » 25 Feb 2006 15:53

Hi Karsten,
Thanks for that photo. You're right it could be a fake, it's so hard to tell for sure from a photo. On the other hand many different shapes and sizes of tropical helmets were issued to the Schutztruppe from different manufacturers, I would imagine the postal service also used different types too.
Cheers
Chris

Karstenh83 · Post by **Karstenh83** » 25 Feb 2006 17:56

Hello Chris,

you have understood me. The tropical helmet which you have shown us, seems to be old and it could be original. But on ebay I saw few tropical helmet and some of them were fakes.
But I´m not an expert for uniforms and tropical helmet and so I can´t say anything if your tropical helmet is an original or a fake.

I post my picture only for showing, which kind of tropical helmet was wearing by postmen in the colonies. It was only an example not a conclusion.

But If you like, I could post some documents of a postman, who served in German-Southwestafrica. (Another example for the history of the post in the german colonies). If you are interested for it.

Best wish

Karsten