Gems of Polish Philately:

Inverted 6 Heller Krakow Provisional

Inverted 6 Heller Kraków Provisional

While Poland officially regained its independence on November 11, 1918, different parts of the country gained independence at different times. The November 11th date really applies to the central part of Poland that was the former Russian Congress Kingdom of Poland occupied by Germany. The territory occupied by Austria was freed October 29, 1918. The Germans held Wielkopolska until December 27, 1918, and the Pomorze area until February 10, 1919.

This brief historical overview gives an understanding of the difficulties in the formation of the Polish government and to the organization of the postal services. Official government issued postage stamps did not occur until January 27, 1919, in the former Austrian and German occupied areas. There were, however, issues with the currency then in place in each of the former occupied territories. Until official Polish government stamps were issued, the postal service used the existing German and Austrian stamps to prepay postage, but growing nationalistic enthusiasm necessitated the overprinting of the stamps of the former occupiers into distinctive Polish stamps. These stamps were called provisional stamps (stamps used until official government stamps are available) and were made by the postal administrations of Warsaw, Lublin, Kraków, Poznań, and Gniezno. Many of the greatest Polish rarities belong to this 1918-1919 provisional period.

Beginning on January 10, 1919, the postal administration of Kraków began overprinting Austrian stamps into Polish stamps by adding “POCZTA POLSKA” to both definitive stamps and postage due stamps.  Thirty-seven different values were overprinted. In the haste to print this issue, many printing varieties occurred.  Some varieties were due to an insufficient number of “slugs” of letters to be consistent, some due to normal wear, and some intentional.

Inverted overprints can be found on the 6, 40, 50, 60, and 80 heller definitive stamps and the 15 heller postage due.

The rarest inverted overprint stamp is the six heller.  Shown above is the only recorded pair with one of the stamps being the “thin Z” variety. 

 

By;  Dr. James Mazepa