Germany Definitives: Historic Sites 1987-2004

The Historic Sites Series is a long-running set of definitives from Germany, starting in 1987 and running through 2004.  Although the designs are mostly buildings, some statues are included.  The first series (Scott catalog #1515A-1540A) has 27 stamps from 5pf to 400pf values, all regular sheet stamps.  These are mostly of minimal values, but only the 280pf lists for over $2.  Keep an eye on the issues which include "Berlin" in the name.  Next there are 7 self-adhesives in the 1990s which are all $2 or more, and 23 more sheet stamps (#1838-1860) where the ones from 300pf to 720pf (the highest value in the whole series) are in the $2 to $6 range.  Nine of these are denominated in both pfennigs and euros.  This is followed by the last set of 18 from 2002-04 (#2199-2216) denominated in euros only, with die-cut self-adhesive coil and booklet stamps.  Here, the values over 1-euro are worth about $1.50 per euro.

It's not a colorful series, using a lot of blue-gray and pale green with some muted browns and reds.  To me, the main interest is the range of values and the transition to euro currency.  I always find dual currency issues remarkable, the idea than an entire country might change its monetary system.  I remember after the euro conversion, I bought about 50 pounds of demonetized coins from liquidators, to see the wide range of pocket change from all across Europe over the last few decades.  I can only imagine how many tons of coins and paper money got turned in and exchanged, and I read many stories in the following years about how all those economies survived that vast financial experiment.

Back to stamps, I have a fondness for the definitive series that are the backbone of the postal systems around the world.  It's easy to ignore them and only see the commemoratives, but definitives tend to have the highest face values in any mixture and probably a whole lot more variety and more printings and details than the general catalogs can begin to describe.  I figure they make good mixtures on their own, for the specialists to pick through.

If there is any interest, I'm thinking of putting together proper checklists for the various definitive series that I describe here.