The 5/3 Fenig Second Warsaw Provisional Issue Form II

One of the most challenging issues of Poland to collect is the second provisional issue of Warsaw (Sc 15-26¹ / Fi 6-16). The eleven stamps that these numbers represent are deceiving. There were two printings of this issue, called Form I and Form II, various color differences of the basic stamps, and differences in intensity of ink in the original German overprint. When all these are taken into account, there are no less than 126 varieties, and this does not count the multitude of plate errors and flaws.

The rarest basic stamp of this issue is the 5/3 fenig Form II.  Only 5% of the total  5/3 fenig stamps printed (417,000) were overprinted by Form II (Sc 17 / Fi 9a II), and only a very small number of these have survived. The image above shows a well centered, mint never hinged, block of eight (positions 7-10 x 17-20) that might well be the only surviving block from the upper right corner of the sheet. Stamps from the first row of Form II have a small difference in the spacing of the horizontal lines compared to the remaining rows, thus, blocks with first and second rows are especially sought after. 

The printer had to find one hundred “5”s for the overprinting. Some of these had small distinguishing characteristics; others acquired what are called transitional flaws which occurred in the course of printing due to the wear on the plate.  This block shows three transitional flaws: position 7 has the dot in the “5”, position 18 has a flat top on the “5”, and position 20 has a break in the numeral “5”.

By:  Dr. James Mazepa

Footnote:

¹ Scott’s Catalog designation excludes the use of “22”, hence remaining number designations total eleven.