Supplement to the expertising rules

The following rules change or supplement the currently valid version of the BPP expertising rules.

1. Expertisations

Forerunners are expertised according to the colour specifications of the German Reich (Michel Nos. 31-50), even if the colours listed there in the colonial part of the MICHEL special catalogue are not separately catalogued.

Items from the German Post Offices in China, Michel Nos. 8-14, I-IV, are not “signed”, for reasons concerned with combating forgery. Attestations/findings are issued without exception.

2. Postmark questions

Loose stamps, stamps on pieces and covers with postmarks that are not confirmed as contemporary (the so-called Type II) are treated in accordance with the expertising rules of the BPP, but they will be given an additional expertising mark in the form of a shaded circle, insofar as they are signed.

Cancellations on correctly carried covers which, although contemporary, have provisional postmarks that had already become obsolete, are regarded as having Type II cancellations and are appropriately expertised (German Post Offices in China from the time of the Boxer Rebellion).

Cancellations, the correctness of whose usage is unclear (e.g. mass cancellation with the official seal of Ponape, cancellations with the single-ring “Tsingtau” postmark of November 1914 and “Truk 11.10.14” or “Fagamalo” of 1914) are not “signed”.

Blank postmarked postal stationery items will be signed on the back on the lower edge of the indicium. Stamps on cover for which proper, postal transportation cannot be confirmed are expertised as pieces.

3. Quality

Some issues in this expertising area – this applies in particular to the early issues of the German Post Offices in Turkey, as well as the early issues of “Crown/Eagle” series, Michel Nos. 45-50 – often have blunt perforation teeth. As the stamp was printed on soft or thin paper, items with slightly blunt teeth are not regarded as inferior, and will be expertised as faultless.