The Gallery of Polish Philatelic Jewels – call for participation

The 100th anniversary of regaining Polish Independence is an excellent opportunity to create the Gallery of Polish Philatelic Jewels, which would cover the period slightly longer than last two centuries and particularly the first period of experiencing freedom from partition.

Our intention is to gather and present the most valuable philatelic items that have survived from the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, through the Kingdom of Poland, the restless times of winning independence in the second decade of the 20th century, the time of the Second Republic of Poland, Nazi occupation and struggle in exile as well as the initial period of functioning of the Post Office after 1944 and later. That is why we ask our Philatelists' Colleagues to present in the form of scans what they subjectively consider to be rarities in their collections. For understandable reasons, in the first phase we want to focus on the beginnings of Polish statehood after 123 years of partitioning. The philatelic rarity of the period November 1918 - April 1924 (the end of the brand currency) may include both: assets of high material value and those that are characterised by rarity, although not appreciated in terms of price so far.
The initiative to open the Gallery aims to promote Polish philately both: traditional and the history of the post, as well as to show the importance of the Polish History of Post and the social communication it sparked  together with the most interesting values in philatelic resources. The subjective assessment of the owners of the shared philatelic items made available will be voluntarily verified by philatelic experts who are members of i-KF and the authors of this announcement before being placed in the gallery.

All those willing to show their rarities are invited to send their scans in a resolution not worse than 600 dpi with a short information about the philatelic importance of presented items. We will present the values by providing the name of the person who made the material available, or we will show it anonymously if the sender wishes it.
The organizers of the Gallery recognize that by sending materials for publication, the sender declares that he has the right to dispose of the image of the objects sent.
We reserve the right to refuse to publish any material submitted.
Please send the materials to i.kolo.pzf@gmail. com with a note on the topic "Jewel".

Below we present 3 examples of jewels of Polish philately. The first one is absolute rarity, a postcard Cp 50 from the first edition Ia marked by VIII-1931 with illustration 28a and with an erroneous signature “CZARNKOWA”. The entire print run of this card has been destroyed however only about 100 copies have been handed over to the Museum of the Post and Telecommunication in Warsaw. A certain number of postcards “disappeared” during the II world war and later years, and the Museum has only a few copies in its possession. Singular copies have appeared on the world philatelic market for several decades (2-4 pieces), but the cards with this erroneous printing are unique and do not appear on philatelic exchanges.
The second one is a postcard of a provisional Lublin Issue for the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian occupation, dated on 23rd December 1918 (Cp 5), sent on 8th January 1919 from Lublin to Prague, with the face value of 25 hal and without a frame around the emblem and the inscription “POCZTA POLSKA”. In the pre-war edition of PZP (1935) it was registered as type A – without a frame. It might be treated as a proof of the Cp5 P2. Known in few copies.
The third example is a card sent on 5th February 1919 from Kraków to Dębica, paid for with the postage dues stamp D3 of the Kraków edition instead of the regular stamp. The postage dues stamps D1, D3 and D6 of the Kraków edition were occasionally used instead of regular stamps.