Forlaget Nørbyhus

English Summary 242 English Summary On 20 October 1955 the Danish Post issued the first 30-øre provisional stamps, which were to be used as a daily series of stamps. Since then there have been several articles written about them. In 1970 I began studying the stamps and have worked on this book since then. Shortly after the Second World War, there was a shortage of most materials - paper too - and the Danish Post made an exceptional decision and printed a reserve storage of stamps, 877,500 sheets, which stored until 1955 when they decided to make a 30 øre surcharge on them. In 1970 I began to study the 30-øre provisional stamps and have studied them with short brakes in time. Now the result of my studies is this book. The book is divided into 22 sections, which begins with the description of the manufacturing of the basic stamps. There is very much hitherto unpublished information on the basic stamps, thanks to the director of the Danish Stamp Printing House, Ricardo Sundgaard’s kindness. In the 1970s I almost slept on the stamp-printing machine while I studied their many records. When the Danish Post decided to turn the 877,500 sheets (each of 100 stamps) into 30-øres provisional stamps, they asked the private firm J. Jorgensen & Co., Copenhagen, to make the surcharge. In total five different formes were used for the surcharging of the sheets. These formes all are described in their own chapters, together with a description of their constant printing errors. The gathering and registration of 30-øre provisional stamps made it possible to give a description of the print run for each forme and hence we can say something about the rarity of some of the 30-øre provisional stamps. It turned out that one type had only been issued in a total of 8,600 sheets, which obviously was recognised by all philatelists. A special technical fact led to a series of sheets, which were surcharged twice without the sheets being trashed, since the gap between the first and second surcharges was very small in the printer's eyes. Philatelists on the contrary, were happy with and appreciate them in the highest degree today. One sheet had a double surcharge where the gap between the first and second surcharges was so wide that one can see five bars instead of four. This sheet was not sold normally to the public, but was bought by the postmaster in the town of Skive, in Jutland. This sheet is called “The Skive-sheet”. Since it was a postmaster who bought the sheet, doubts arose about whether he should have returned the sheet to the stamp control unit so they could destroy the sheet. He didn’t and later a stamp collector complained about “sales cycle” so a great and exciting story came out of it, which included the parliamentary Ombudsman. It ended with some postal regulations so it became more difficult for postal employees to collect stamps! In 1984 a single sheet with reverse (upside down) surcharge on the 30-øre provisional stamps was discovered, so now we are hoping to find a sheet with reverse double surcharge! However, it has not been found and it will probably never be found - we don’t know if it exists of course. Not only do we collect stamps, but we also cover postal history. In the short time that the 30-øre provisional stamps were in use, items bearing these stamps could illustrate a series of special postal matters. Catalogue quotations may also be interesting reading, and there is often unrealistically high / low list prices, also discussed here. Finally - a list of the perforators - which have been used for the perforation of 30-øre provisional stamps, is shown. It’s actually possible to locate the position of a stamp simply by using perforator characteristics. Perforators were later - in the 1960s - manufactured so perfectly that this method could no longer be used. The author hopes that, even without knowing the Danish language, the English language reader can benefit by reading the book and studying the many illustrations. Enjoy! Toke Nørby

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