STAMP DEALERS - SENF BROTHERS

The Saxony based firm of Gebrüder Senf located in one of the most highly industrialized areas of Germany became well known for their printed Stamp Albums¹ and Stamp Catalogues.² Their business grew during the 1880s and from volume 11, January 1884 their periodical Illustrierte Briefmarken- Journal³ included facsimiles of rare stamps for collectors to use as space fillers, presumably in their printed albums. These space fillers were overprinted ‘Facsimile’ (the 1887 British Bechuanaland five pound postage and revenue stamp being an example), others had the word ‘FALSCH’ or ‘Facsimile’ reversed out in the design (examples of the latter can be found in the 1861 Cape of Good Hope, so called ‘wood-blocks’). Some stamps have the wording incorporated in the design and overprinted. The problem was that anyone could cover these with cancels to pass them off as genuine stamps.

Despite protests against the production and circulation of these facsimiles, considered by many to be forgeries, the Senf brothers Louis and Richard continued the free distribution of these facsimiles which they referred to as Kunstbeigabe (art-addition or art-supplement). However, following a poll of their readers this practice was discontinued early in 1890. Senf also sold these facsimiles numbering 90 stamps or so and four stamped envelopes representing a total of 42 countries and continued to do so when the free distribution stopped, in fact some were never offered free. There were no Transvaal stamps included in Varro E. Tyler’s list of Senf facsimiles published during 1968.⁴ In addition to the facsimiles they produced and sold forgeries ⁵ and gave their readers copies of inexpensive genuine stamps which they referred to as Gratisbeigabe (free-supplement).⁶

The above ZAR postal stationery cards are Vürtheim design 1d carmine (Higgins & Gage catalogue number 1) and represent two of three posted on the same day, 14^th October 1893, from Johannesburg addressed to Gebrüder Senf of Leipzig, Germany. (Only two are illustrated here.)

According to Mathews the ZAR postcard rate to all overseas countries was reduced from 2d to 1d from 15^th September 1893.⁷ Although this was questioned by at least one author⁸, who later provided evidence that this reduction had been disallowed by the Tweede Volksraad in 1893⁹, all three postal stationery cards mentioned here appear to have passed through the post at the 1d rate and have Cape Town transit cancels dated 17^th October and indecisive arrival marks.

The postal stationery card illustrated here as appears at first glance to have been up-rated with a pair of ½d adhesive stamps. However, these have been removed from another cover or postcard posted to Senf on the same day and being damaged and therefore unsaleable the pair of ½d stamps were removed and adhered here. One of these ½d stamps is badly rubbed and both show unsightly staining caused by use of an inexpensive non-preservative adhesive. Senf probably thought they could enhance the value of this item by the addition of these two used stamps.

All three cards bear brief messages written in the same hand but signed with different names. The card illustrated here reads “The amount has been remitted to you yours truly M Hefferson” the others read “I depart from here to-morrow yours truly M Milns” and “Cash will follow shortly yours truly M Diem”. These messages are written in the same hand as seen on German postal stationery cards used by G. Senf during the first decade of the twentieth century for sending official statements of account to their clients. The three spurious messages were probably written in Germany in an attempt to give some credulity and appeal to English speaking collectors. They may also have created messages in different languages.

Gebrüder Senf, a company which engaged in both wholesale and retail trade covered all aspects of philately including, it would seem, contrived Z.A.R. postal stationery cards.

Postscript
As all three postal stationary cards appear to have been accepted by the ZAR Post Office, perhaps the 1d rate was sanctioned for a few weeks, or there was confusion about the correct rate to Germany. The third possibility is that as there were no messages on the backs the 1d. rate was accepted at sample, specimen or book post rate.

Acknowledgement
I thank David Beech and Brian Birch for their useful comments following the first draft and Andrew Higson for the copy of The Stamp Collectors’ Fortnightly.

References
1 Matthews, J., and Woolgar, J., (2009), Richard Senf Illustrated Postage Stamp-Album, The Transvaal Philatelist, vol.44, no.2 (170), pp.30-31.

2 For a list of Senf Brothers stamp catalogues 1892 to 1909 lodged with the British Library - see, (1991), Catalogue of the Crawford Library of Philatelic Literature at the British Library, The Printer’s Stone Limited in Association with the British Library, p.349-352. A copy can be viewed in the 'Rare Books and Music' Reading Room of the British Library (London) on open access at shelfmark: RAR 769.56. Please bear in mind that a reader’s pass will be required.

3 British Library shelfmark for the year 1888: Crawford 875(17), Senf Illustrierte Briefmarken - Journal 1888.

4 Tyler V. E., (1968), The Gebrüder Senf Facsimiles, in The Congress Book 1968, Thirty-Fourth American Philatelic Congress, October 4-6, 1968, The American Philatelic Congress, Inc. pp.187-198.

5 Tyler V. E., (1991 revised edition), Philatelic Forgers, their lives and works, Linn’s Stamp News, Ohio, p.115-116. (Brian Birch, records there is very little difference between this revised edition and the first edition.

6 Ibid Tyler V. E., (1968), p.189.

7 '1893 September 15. The letter rate to other member countries was reduced to 2½d (as with the UK), postcards to all countries were reduced to 1d and printed matter to all countries was reduced to ½d – again with no weight specified.' Mathews, I.B., (1986), Transvaal Philately, Cape Town, p.186.

8 van den Hurk, G., (1988), The overseas postal rates for postcards in the Z.A.R., The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.23, No.1 (87), p.5.

9 van den Hurk, G., (1989), Z.A.R. Postal Rates, The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.24, No.3 (91), p.59.