Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Germany - Essen - Philatelie-Shop (datestamp)

Deutsche Post has established special philately windows in 26 major post offices throughout the country. Each uses a datestamp with the letters 'ps' in it to distinguish it from normal datestamps. The letters ps stand for Philatelie-shop.

I wanted to have all 26 of these postmarks so before I went to the Briefmarken-Messe in Essen in May 2017 I prepared 26 envelopes to send to the different post offices. The reason I sent requests to all 26 Philatelie-Shops at the same time was because since I was in Germany I could send letters for the national postal tariff of 70 cents instead of the Dutch international tariff of 1,33 euro, a difference of 63 cents per envelope.

For the envelope I used the new definitive 90 cent stamp from the flower series, issued on 11 May 2017 that I bought at the Philatelie-Shop in Essen on the first day of issue.

The lady behind the counter had a rough day. Not only was it her first day in the Philately-Shop (the colleague that normally was there was on holiday), but it was also the first day of issue of five series of stamps. This meant she got a lot of stamp collectors that wanted single stamps, horizontal pairs, vertical pairs, block of four, sheets of ten. And then there was me with a list of stamps from the last three years. The next day I saw her again sitting in her normal place. She had survived the stampede and was still smiling.

She cancelled my envelope and kept it to send to my home. It arrived there only two days later, the first of the 26 to make it to the Netherlands. 

The Philatelie-Shop can be found in the central post office, located opposite the central station (Hauptbahnhof). The address for postmark requests is: Willy-Brandt-Platz 1, 45127 Essen, Germany. Opening hours: Mo-Fr 8.30-19.00 h., Sat 9.30-15.30 h.

Date sent: 11 May 2017
Date postmark: 11 May 2017
Date received: 13 May 2017
Number of days: 2
Envelope in collection: 39




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