How well do we know our stamps? Dutch East Indies?!

[Rein]

Ask a Dutch collector to point out to you which stamp this is, he will within a few minutes come up with the catalogue number.

Yet he is wrong!

Having dealt with Argentina stamps for the last two years and having found so many stamp variants that were unknown to the collectors there, the same can happen to any country's stamp.

The stamp looks familiar but somehow it is different. It may be different as it has never been described before and yet may turn out to be one of the various normal versions of that stamp.

It may however have a completely different origin. In this case I know what it is! But how am I to convince my fellow collectors that it is something special! That has not been described in any catalogue before????

to be continued ...

[Rein]

The 5c green was issued in June 1922. It had 3 printings in typography on unwatermarked paper, counter sheets of 200.

Order 134 of 02-04-1921 66.000 sheets; first delivered 30-09-1921 62.674 sheets plus 43/200; margin letter B

Order 242 of 05-07-1922 68.000 sheets; first delivered 26-05-1923 65.970 sheets; margin letter C

Order 682 of 01-10-1926 7.000 sheets; first delivered 21-03-1927 6.869 sheets; margin letter D







to be continued ...

[Rein]

During the First World War, the Dutch East Indies had problems in getting their supply of postage stamps that had to come from the Netherlands....

In the early 1920-ies in the Dutch East Indies parliament discussions were started to have the production of postage stamps and other security papers transferred to the Dutch East Indies!

At least two Printing Works were candidates! The Landsdrukkerij [State Printing House] in Batavia [now Djakarta] and the Topographische Dienst [Survey Department] in Weltevreden.

The latter did in fact prepare several stamps in photogravure and in offset-litho around 1923-1926. A special committee of the Landsraad [Parliament] had to find out about the (im)possibilities of having the production of postage stamps transferred. During the 1926-1930 period several essays had been prepared by the Survey Dept. Among them a 5c Numeral green and a 12 1/2 c Queen red.

At the end, the extra costs to have a Security Printing House arranged plus the high demands about the one-time use of the stamps resulted in having a decision about the transfer being postponed. Several years later, when Japan became a threat in Eastern Asia, the discussion started again and new Printing Houses started to show their (cap)abilities of printing postage stamps!

The strip of 3 shown here comes from the essays made around 1926-1930! The printing sheets - offset-litho - have 2 counter sheets of 10x10!

I am lucky enough to have such se-tenant sheet (and a bit more) in my collection. The only other sheets are in the Museum of Communication in The Hague - where the former owner of the sheets Jan van Hal had donated it to!

[Rein]

SG 427 for comparison:

Nigel,

you hit the nail right ....

The Survey Dept. had prepared the 5c blue in 1940 as there was no way of getting stamps from the Home Land! The G. Kolff & Co Printing Works had already started in 1937 to print fiscals and were soon to take over the stamp production not only for the Dutch East Indies but also for the Dutch West Indies [Curacao and Suriname]

[Rein]

The differences - a few of them - between the 1922 postage stamp and the 1926 essay made by the Survey Dept.

[Rein]

Those printing orders can be given to different companies, done in Holland or locally.
High volume common stamps go in back-order quite often.
That slightly smaller stamp does not look that well printed, could be a forgery to injure the postoffice.

All printings had been done in Haarlem, The Netherlands by Joh. Enschedé & Sons!

[Rein]

The sheets are a bit too large for my scanner





My double-sheet is no 27!

[Rein]

@Rein,
The picture with the two stamps with the red markings for the differences.
The right-side stamp is not so well printed, details are rather rough, not realy well centred compared to the left-side stamp. Probably other paper and inkt also causes some lost of detailing.
If it was not an official try-out order, you would expect a forgery.
You say the blue stamps was made localy to, then they improved there printing technic probably with the help of J.Enschede
Sheet "27" is not clear enough to inspect the details
Funny the catalogue does not mention this variation, maybe because is was just a try-out a kind of specimen that not supposed to get out in public.

The left-hand stamp is the essay made by the Survey Dept! The right-hand stamp is the "real" stamp as issued in the Dutch East Indies. It is the stamp most Dutch collectors are likely to find in their albums!

The 5c blue was also produced by the Survey Dept. in 1940 as there was a sudden need for 5c stamps and it was obvious that no more stamps would arrive from the Netherlands after the German invasion on May 10th, 1940!

The Topographische Dienst had had NO help from Joh. Enschedé & Sons at all. They certainly had improved their knowledge of printing in offset-litho since 1926 as can be expected in 14 years time

[Rein]

At the end, the extra costs to have a Security Printing House arranged plus the high demands about the one-time use of the stamps resulted in having a decision about the transfer being postponed.

In the early decennia of te XXth century, the Chinese community was supposed to be responsible for re-using stamps on a large scale!

Just as the UK Royal Mail now is pestering philatelists and giving us stamps you can not soak off paper without destroying them, the Dutch East Indies postal authorities demanded the colours of stamps to be completely washed off before they could be re-used! Collectors now are well aware of the fact that you have to be very careful with DEI stamps of the 1900-1930 period. Only in the mid-1930-ies the solution came from a different direction: killer cancellations that would even destroy the contents of your letters!

Before that, the simple solution was to cover the stamp paper with arabic gum on both sides! On one side as to have an adhesive, on the other side to make sure that the print would be washed off the layer of gum arabic!

[Rein]

Definitives of the Dutch Overseas Colonies have had a lot of variations that were never allowed to enter a catalogue - not even a Dutch one!

The Netherlands East Indies 1 guilder value of the 1913-1931 series is a good example:



and details of various printings (including some with overprints)






to be continued ...

[Rein]

1921 60c overprint:



airmail 75c overprint:





to be continued ...

[Rein]

In 1916 - probably there is no date in that book - the Dutch Philatelic Association had a Handbook on the Dutch East Indies published. That book is the only specialized printed in book-form literature about the Dutch East Indies stamps. It was a bit too early for the stamps dealt above to give enlugh details other than that steel plates were involved and that mr. D. Harting was the engraver.

There is ony other source in book--form that got published in May 1940 in New York by Arthur Schiller and Johan de Kruyff of the New York Netherlands and Colonies Philatelists It deals with all the Dutch and Colonies stamps.

It passed rather unnoticed as it was published at a time that the Netherlands were invaded by the German troops....

I will return to passages in that book that are great!

to be continued ...

[Rein]

The Manual proves that my assumption of these variations not being recorded before was wrong!

But on the other hand it shows that whatever great philatelists have once researched and published AND what wasn't picked up by the catalogue makers out of mainly commercial reasons - they didn't have the material and/or were too lazy to dig into the matter - gets lost!! Or forgotten for 70 years and accidentally discovered again....

I know out of first hand that the editors of the Dutch Stamp Dealers Association issued Dutch and Colonies Stamp Catalogue don't really bother to read the monthly columns in the only Dutch nation-wide stamp magazine "Filatelie" and pick up for their Specialists Catalogue what is there on a silver tray!

But getting back to the Indies:





It was all there - the information about the 1 Guilder Dutch East Indies of the 1913 Queen and Palm tree series. Some 70 years ago!

to be continued ...

[Rein]

The article in the Nederlandsch Maandblad voor Philatelie Arthur Schiller and Johannes de Kruyff are referring to is on page 90:








and is not quite in line with what is stated in the Manual.

to be continued ...

[Rein]

The original die had been engraved in steel by mr. D. Harting - that is the frame, the Queen, the palms, but the name of the country, the value ciphers and the "cent"and "gulden" had been done separately in a later stages.

This design had been used for not just the Dutch East Indies but also for Curacao and Suriname. The design is identical for all! During the whole period!

The added parts were made when and on what???

The original engraving must have been multiply into several dies that could be modified and the extras added for the various values and regions. Each of these dies then transferred to a molette-cylinder [transfer-roll] from which the separate entries in the plates would be made.

Still, assuming that no electro-chemical transfer [galvano] was involved.

The term "re-entry" only refers to a second attempt to improve a particular stamp-position on the plates where the transfer-roll hadn't done its work right in the first place. Judging by the completely different lines in the cipher-frame this is certainly not the case.

From what I can read in the literature so far found is that the diagonal lines cipher-frame only occurs in certain stamps - the 1928 75c on 1 guilder Airmail and printings of the 1 guilders from 1933 [?] onwards.

And that is where another problem arises.

That fact that stamps had been printed in the Netherlands, were shipped to the Dutch East Indies , were stored in the Post Office store-houses in Batavia and were distributed to the local post offices all over the archipelago.....

From official sources I have, the 50c and 2gld50, were last printed in 1932 and most of the stamp sheets printed in that year had been delivered to the Dutch Post Office AND shipped to the Dutch East Indies as well. No 1 guilder stamps were shipped to the Dutch East Indies in 1932 or later!

Whatever was reported by philatelists of variations / printings having been issued of the 1 guilders after 1931 is not correct, that is nothing printed after 1931 and any reported changes come from an earlier period or are due to climatical changes....

to be continued ...