1579 German Stampless cover! Incredible penmanship. MUST SEE NOTES:

Item Specifics

Country

Germany

Stamp Type

General Issue

Condition

Cover (Postal History)

Stamp Format

Single

Item Description

I am far, far from an expert. This came to us well protected, and in exceptional condition for the year. At first I thought "if it looks too good to be true it probably is"..... but now I am not so sure.

I do not speak German. Even if I did, it would take a long time to translate... as it is written in what I believe is called Latin Black Letter script of the 16th century.

It is in amazing condition. So I researched a little:

``When people typically think of “old books,” they imagine Victorian-era books with their brittle, yellowed pages and extensive foxing. I have even heard people call incunabula “obvious fakes” because their pages were so clean. The difference between cotton rag paper and wood pulp paper, then, is a very stark one ``

It is not on what we would recognize as paper. I believe it is on a dense form of cotton:

"Wood pulp-based paper is the most familiar paper to the modern world and is what constitutes 99.99% of today’s books and documents."  However, the quality of wood pulp paper declined significantly from cotton.

"The yellowing that people typically associate with – and expect from – old books is unique to wood pulp paper, and it is a result of lignin, the polymer that is responsible for binding cellulose fibers together. Lignin is an integral part of wood itself and essential to the pulping and binding process of wood pulp paper, so it is an unavoidable ingredient. When lignin is exposed to the environment, it undergoes oxidation, causing it to destabilize and absorb more light, in effect turning it yellow. Although it is possible to preserve wood pulp paper by keeping it completely unexposed to sunlight, it takes only the briefest exposure to begin the oxidation process, which cannot be reversed.

Although wood pulp paper is extremely significant to the history of printing and bookmaking, and useful in many ways which cotton paper is not, it is fundamentally inferior in quality and in longevity, and extra care must be taken with books printed in the last 200 years or so on wood pulp paper, as they are prone to brittle destruction, permanent oxidation, and sheer disintegration. For collectors who value aesthetics more than anything else, there is nothing more splendid than the clean, healthy, and rich whiteness of pure cotton paper, whether 500 years old or contemporary."

if it is indeed authentic (as I suspect) it is worth I believe, MANY more times what I am asking here. If it is not, it is still a most interesting addition to any serous collector's collection.

Any questions, please ask.

Seller Information

Seller

BarryT (9813)

Registered Since

01/17/2008

Feedback

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Item Location

Ontario, Canada

Ships To

Worldwide

Returns Accepted

Yes

Returns Policy

Will accept returns within 10 days. Buyer must pay for shipping.