I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but these early Bavarian stamps are a pleasure to look. The stamp design is simple, colours are vivid and a nice millwheel cancel on top gives the final touch. These stamps also carry a historic message, as Bavaria was the ninth country in the world to release postage stamps. Bavaria was also the first German state to begin stamp production.

The first stamp I have here, is 3 Kreuzer blue issued in 1850/58 (Michel #2II). Specialists identify 5 different printing plates with this stamp.  This should be from second print plate – meaning a catalogue value of 3,50€ (stamps from 1st plating are worth 75€).

The second stamp is 3 Kreuzer red issued in 1862 (Michel #9, cat. value 3€)

Tough the design of stamps looks similar, there are few things that make them distinct.

First, the ring around nominal value is different with both stamps.  On blue stamp, the ring is too large and therefore broken. With red stamp the ring is smaller and therefore complete.

Notice a fine silk line going trough these stamps? That is a security measure early Bavarian issues contained.  These stamps were originally printed in sheets of 180, that were cut into sheet of 90. The two panes of 90 were separated by a wide gutter, leading to extremely rare (and valuable) gutter pairs on these stamps.

Also cancellations are noteworthy with these stamps. Each city in Bavaria had an individual number cancellation and about 2,000 have been identified.  Based on Michel, the number cancels on these stamps (243 and 28) are very common and don’t provide any additional value.

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