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Saxony (Sachsen)

Saturday, June 29, 1850

German State 2

Sax1
  Saxony Scott #1  

Imperforate, no watermark, typographed.
Printed by J. B. Hirschfeld.

Description # printed # sold Scott SG Mi Y&T
June 29, 1850. Typographed.
3 pfennig brick red
 500,000 463,118 1      
August 1, 1851. Coat of Arms. Engraved.
3 pfennig green
 ? ? 2      
August 1 (?), 1851. King Friedrich August II. Engraved.
½ neu-groschen black on gray
 ? ? 3      
1 neu-groschen black on rose
 ? ? 4      
1 neu-groschen black on rose
 ? ? 5      
2 neu-groschen black on pale blue
 ? ? 6      
3 neu-groschen black on yellow
 ? ? 8      
1852.
2 neu-groschen black on dark blue
 ? ? 7      

All issue quantities are approximate.

Saxony #1 was printed in sheets of 20 (5 by 4). Eight printings yielded a total of 25,000 sheets, for a total of 500,000 stamps.

Saxony #1 is an expensive stamp. It is rare, in part due to the relatively low quantity issued, but also because three pfennig was the newspaper rate! Many stamps were destroyed as a result of them being used to seal newspaper wrappers.

You could therefore make an argument for the first true postage stamp issued was one of the ones issued later. Another good argument for chosing one of those is that they are significantly cheaper.

The unsold copies of #1, 36,882 in all, were returned to Leipzig and officially burned on December 10, 1851.

It is estimated that 3 - 4,000 copies of #1 exist today. However, many have been repaired and this stamp has been extensively falsified, perhaps most notably by Francois Fournier.

The first stamp of Saxony is famous enough to have earned the nick-name "Sachsen-Dreier", something like the "Saxony Three'er" in English.

From January 1, 1869 Saxony joined the North German Confederation, and therefore seized to issue stamps of their own.

Get an overview of Germany and German States 1849 - 1872.

Image from Sandafayre.

FI ref: 18 Page credit: JA

Page created 19 Feb 2014 Page updated 19-Jun-2017