This post features my collection of Weimar Republic post horn stamps. The post horn has been the symbol of the postal system since the eighteenth century. This was because of the practice of mail carriers on horseback blowing a small horn to announce their arrival or departure. Consequently, the post horn became an international symbol of the postal service. As a result, the instrument appears in logos, on uniforms, and on postage stamps from Argentina to Iran. Make sure to read my blog post devoted to the topic.
Of course, post horn stamps are most common in Europe. For instance, you can check out my collection of post horn stamps from Austria, Sweden, Norway, Italy, and Hungary. This article is really a supplement to my post about German post horns. The period of the Weimar Republic in Germany was only a few years. Surprisingly, there are many post horn stamps from this tumultuous era. This article is an opportunity to explore these stamps and the history they elucidate.
Weimar Republic
As the first World War came to a close in the second half of 1918, the country of Germany was in crisis. Indeed, a revolution began with sailors in the city of Kiel on October 29, spreading across the country. Immense pressure made Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate on November 9. Two days later, the war was over. Without the Kaiser, basically, there were competing sources of power and quite a bit of chaos. One thing was clear, however, that the monarchy was over and a democratically elected government would replace it.
In January of 1919 elections for the National Assembly were held. These elected representatives met for the first time in Weimar where they wrote a new constitution. Officially, the government was the German Reich, though often called the German Republic. However, the right-wing never accepted the democracy, and it was Hitler who coined the term “Weimar Republic” in 1929, naming the government after the city where the constitution was written. The term then became widely accepted both within Germany and externally.
The period of the Weimar Republic was tumultuous, eventually leading to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. The economic conditions of the country caused by the war, not to mention the severe penalties imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, caused great hardship. Further, worker strikes, material shortages, and political division made things worse. In the early years, inflation became a tremendous problem, leading to a period of hyperinflation in 1922 and 1923. The Great Depression brought further terrible unemployment.
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933 and by March he and his cabinet had stripped most of the power from the assembly. This was the end of the Weimar Republic.
Weimar Republic Post Horn Stamps
The stamps during the Weimar Republic are quite fascinating. There were hundreds of stamps from this short period, in part because of a period of inflation and hyperinflation that caused the government to have to reissue stamps with new values. Interestingly, a great many of these stamps feature the post horn as either the main motif, or as an element of the design.
I have been able to put together a representative sample of stamps from this era, including examples of the major post horn designs and at least examples of some of their varieties. The earliest is the 1919 airmail stamp below. This orange stamp has a large post horn with wings in the center of the stamps and bears a 10 reichspfenning denomination. That same year, a green airmail stamp with a biplane was also created with a 40 reichspfenning value. The design of both stamps was by Georg Alexander Mathéy.
Scott Number DE C1
New Post Horn Design: 1921-22
In 1921-22, new definitive post horn stamps by the designer Wilhelm Szesztokat became available. Chiefly, this design features a small post horn right smack in the middle of the stamp with denominational values in each of the corners. Each denomination stamp in the set is a different color. Eventually, there would be eleven values ranging from 2 to 50 marks. There are a number of varieties of this design, including one and two color stamp designs, the use of two different watermarks, and even small changes in the printings. One helpful source is here.
Below is my attempt to make some sense of these stamps using examples from my collection. This is so tricky, that of course I welcome corrections if I am incorrect, and suggestions to make things more understandable.
The 1921-22 series were two-color stamps in the denominations of 2M (mark), 3M, 4M, 5M, 10M, 20M, 30M, and 50M. Overall, I have seven of these stamps (missing the two-color 10M). If at first you do not see the two colors, do not worry, it is subtle. Specifically, look at the printing in the oval around the post horn. To me, it is more apparent on the 2M and 50M stamps, but visible on all of these examples.
Scott #’s DE 177-180, DE 182-184
Watermarks
In this early issue of these definitive stamps, there were two types of watermarks. Some of the first stamps of the lowest denominations, e.g. 2M, 3M, and 4M, had a “lozenge” watermark. None of my post horn stamps have this watermark, though some of my other Weimar era stamps of the period do. In any case, the watermark looks like a series of diamonds (lozenges). Below is a scan of the back of one of my stamps where the watermark is visible, additionally, next to it I have drawn on some of the diamonds to make it a bit more obvious (don’t judge my artistic skills).
“lozenge” watermark
The other watermark, which in my collection seems far more common, is the “network” or “waffles” watermark. You will see that this watermark looks like a series of interlocking figure-8’s (at least to me). Below you can see on the left the scan of the back of one of my stamps, and on the right another amateurish attempt to trace the watermark and make it more obvious to see.
“network” or “waffles” watermark
1922 Post Horn Stamps
By early 1922, the two-color post horn design was replaced with stamps that were a single color. In addition to the denominations made in 1921, there were several new additions, a 6M (mark), 8M, and 40 M. Below you can see my set of 1922 post horn single-color post horn stamps.
Scott Numbers:
Types 1 and 2
Further, there are two design types with subtle differences:
Type One: Numbers thicker, stars in oval are rounder, post horn string is thicker.
Type Two: Numbers thinner, stars in oval have longer points, post horn string is thinner.
I think the differences are most pronounced on the 8 Mark denomination stamps.
Type Two (R)
Famously, the 6 Mark type one stamp has the number leaning quite far forward. The type two makes the numeral stand more upright. To my eye, this is most pronounced in the lower left and upper right corners.
Type Two (R)
Numberal lower left Type Two (R)
Inflationary Stamps
Stamp collectors know that definitive issue stamps are made to last for many years. However, by the spring of 1923, the German economy was entering a period of fast inflationary pressures. As a matter of fact, I remember seeing in history courses images of people pushing wheelbarrows full of cash just to buy basic necessities. At the height of the inflationary period, it took 1 trillion Marks to equal a US dollar. The economic issues that caused this terrible period in German history are many and it is really worth reading even a simple source like the Wikipedia article about hyperinflation in the Weimar period.
As a philatelist, what is amazing is seeing how these macroeconomic issues became evident on stamps. As late as the spring of 1923, a domestic letter could be sent within Germany for 40 Marks. The price of one of the higher denominations in the definitive set discussed above. However, beginning in August, and accelerating into the fall, inflation changed so fast that new denominations were added. A great resource with a basic explanation of the stamps of this period can be found on Stamp-Collecting-World.
Postal Rates throughout 1923
Domestic rate / Foreign mail
1923-JAN-15 — 20 Marks / 150 Marks
1923-MAR-01 — 40 Marks / 300 Marks
1923-JUL-01 — 120 Marks / 800 Marks
1923-AUG-01 — 400 Marks / 3,000 Marks
1923-AUG-24 — 8,000 Marks / 60,000 Marks
1923-SEP-01 — 30,000 Marks / 200,000 Marks
1923-SEP-20 — 100,000 Marks / 750,000 Marks
1923-OCT-01 — 800,000 Marks / 6,000,000 Marks
1923-OCT-10 — 2,000,000 Marks / 15,000,000 Marks
1923-OCT-20 — 4,000,000 Marks / 30,000,000 Marks
1923-NOV-01 — 40,000,000 Marks / 200,000,000 Marks
1923-NOV-05 — 500,000,000 Marks / 4,000,000,000 Marks
1923-NOV-12 — 5,000,000,000 Marks / 40,000,000,000 Marks
1923-NOV-20 — 10,000,000,000 Marks / 80,000,000,000 Marks
1923-NOV-26 — 40,000,000,000 Marks / 320,000,000,000 Marks
1923-DEC-12 — 50,000,000,000 Marks / 300,000,000,000 Marks
(taken from Stamp-Collecting-World)
Post Horn Stamps
Of course, my purpose is to look at the post horn varieties. The first stamps of the hyperinflationary period to feature post horns came in September of 1923 with the following three stamps for five, fifty, and seventy five thousand Marks. Notice the small post horns in the corners around the large circle bearing the denomination.
According to the chart above, by September 20th, five days after these came out, a domestic letter cost one hundred thousand marks to send. For a foreign letter, it cost 750,000 marks.
September 15, 1923
October 1923
However, these new stamps were not useful for long. By the beginning of October, a domestic letter cost 800,000 marks to send. A piece of mail sent to a foreign destination cost six million marks to reach its destination. Further, by the tenth of October, the rates more than doubled. By the twentieth, they had doubled again. Below are stamps featuring a post horn motif that were made in Germany in October of 1923.
2 mill. (DE 282) ; 4 mill. (DE 284); 5 mill. (DE 285); 10 mill. (DE 286);
20 mill. (DE 287); 30 mill. (DE 288); 50 mill. (DE 289); 100 mill. (DE 290)
What is not very well represented in the above set is the fact that not only was Germany issuing new stamps, but they were taking old stamps and overprinting new values on them. I have only the 2 million overprints, but it was far more common. Only, you don’t find so many using the post horn design.
November 1923
Things continued on a similar trajectory in November. On the first of that month, it cost 40 million marks to mail a domestic letter and two hundred million to send to a foreign address. Five days later, however, it cost five hundred million to mail within Germany, and four billion externally. The following stamps came out in November of 1923, importantly, don’t mistake the billion mark (milliarden) stamps for the million, really count the zeros.
1 billion (DE 294); 2 billion (DE 295); 5 billion (DE 296);
10 billion (DE 328); 10 billion overprint; 20 billion (DE 298)
What did this look like in practice? Well, I have a cover from November 12, 1923. Significantly, it is covered with stamps on both sides. In particular, notice the BILLION mark and 500 million mark stamps on the front! The back is covered in 50 million mark stamps.
The End of Hyperinflation
Finally, in December of 1923, the German government got a handle on the inflation. Furthermore, a new currency, the Rentenmark, was introduced and things stabilized. Of course, new stamps came out with the new currency. I have several that you can see below. They are similar in designs to the earliest stamps, but bear a single numeral and no number spelled out. The cost of these stamps was in rentenpfennigs.
Several of my Rentenmark stamps have an overprint that says Dienstmarke. This was a designation that indicates the stamps were for official government use, not commercially sold to the public.
While the Weimar period would last another ten years, by the mid-1920s the use of the post horn as a motif on German stamps was over. However, as this article shows, the post horn stamps of the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s are fascinating and can tell an important story from a difficult time in German history.
Great article about history of the post WWI era of Germany over stamps. If you permit us Jay, we would like to translate and post the article in Turkish on our Ankara Philately Club web site with your name.
Murat, I am glad that you enjoyed this article. You may use it, just credit it to the Musical Stamps website (themusicstamps.com) with a link to my English language article.