Danish postage stamp with overprint (part 1)

Stamps with overprints for a philatelic event were unknown in Denmark until 1937. However, two issues subsequently appeared in succession, one in September 1937 and the other in September 1938 (see Part 2). They are two simple stamps, issued in the series of permanent stamps issued from 1933. Before that, the series was produced in a slightly different form, incorporating 'hearts' into the design. Those hearts disappeared from 1933 onwards.

The original stamps were designed by J. Therchilsen and the models for the printing plates were made by Chr. Danielsen. The first editions, from 1905 to 1930, were printed using letterpress. In July 1933, the series without the hearts appeared, executed in intaglio. The values ​​ranged from 1 Øre up to and including 350 Øre, and the series enjoyed a long life with many color changes. The 5 Øre, for example, was initially green, then red-lilac, and later dark red-orange. The 10 Øre came in four colors: orange, bright dark brown, violet, and green. Hafnia '76 50th anniversary of the Kjøbenhavns Philatelist Klub with a stamp exhibition in Charlottenborg. The stamp with the overprint KPK 17.-26. SEPT. 19 37 in blue appeared on September 17, 1937. The surcharge on the 10 Øre stamp was 5 Øre. The original stamp was issued on January 20, 1937, and had a print run of 77.885.200 stamps. Of this print run, 520.000 stamps bear the overprint. The overprint was executed by the printing house J. Jørgensen & Co in Copenhagen. 518.520 copies of this were sold, and the remainder was destroyed. Many collectors used this stamp to obtain a postmark from the first day of availability on September 17, 1937. This was possible during the opening day of the exhibition at the temporary post office located in the Charlottenborg Art Gallery in Copenhagen. A special exhibition stamp was used at the post office. It was a fairly large exhibition. 7.000 album pages containing approximately 200.000 stamps were displayed, making it the largest exhibition in all of Scandinavia to date. It was remarkable that there were few so-called catalogue collections, which was normal at the time, but rather many individually organized entries. The exhibition was a great success; 10.800 day cards (priced at 1 krona), 3.500 children's cards (priced at 50 øre), and 2.870 passe-partout cards (priced at 3 krona) were sold. An overprinted stamp was affixed to the admission ticket, and with this ticket, one was entitled to purchase a maximum of 20 of these overprinted stamps. A jubilee vignette had also been prepared, but it did not progress beyond a proof print. It is interesting to know that the vignette featured the same image as the 3rd mini-sheet issued on June 17, 1976, for the HAFNIA '76. Have you become interested in collecting stamps from Scandinavian countries? Then take a look at the NFV Scandinavia website (www.nfvskandinavie.nl) or contact the association's PR commissioner: henk.burgman@gmail.com.