Flemish Legion Emperor Sheetlets

And now, a day 5 years in the making!

First, a little background. During WWII, the Germans recruited volunteers from the conquered countries to serve on the Eastern Front. Those from the Flanders region were formed into Flemish units which bore many formal names, but are commonly referred to as the Flemish Legion.

Beginning in 1941, several series of private donation stamps were issued by Belgian support organizations for the benefit of the Flemish Legion. These were not valid postage, but were attached to mail for propaganda and recruitment purposes.

The Emperor/Empress sheetlets were available beginning 9 August 1943. Approximately 30,000 sets were printed, though most are of the perforated variety. I couldn't find a reference for how many imperforate sheetlets were printed, but if the catalog price is any indication, the number is extremely small.

On today's philatelic market, the imperforate Emperor/Empress sheetlets are the rarest of the Flemish Legion sheetlet sets, and it's taken me over 5 years to acquire them. I let a set get by me in 2007, and this is the first set I had seen at auction since then. I went so far as to have a dedicated stash of funds set aside waiting for the day this set appeared again. And lo and behold, last week the elusive Emperors (and Empress) poked their heads out of deep hibernation...








Note that this set bears matching numbers, which would seem to indicate the set was originally purchased by a collector and has remained as a set from day 1. It's also an especially low number (#000002), so he/she must have been near the front of the line on 9 August 1943! Should have pushed the other guy out of the way and purchased #000001!

And just so they don't feel left out, the perforated sheetlets.

Very beautiful stamps. What an achievement.

Very nice. Are the imperf sheets the ones referred to in Michel as "Einfarbiger in anderen Farben"?

It's great for a stamp collector to finally own what he seek for a long time. Do you have also some of those stamps on cover as well?

nigelc,

The "Einfarbiger in anderen Farben" are single-color imperfs in colors other than the final issue colors. They are:

IX -- Grey black
X -- Light brownish carmine
XI -- Dark lilac brown on light chrome yellow (no gum proof printing)
XII -- Brownish carmine
XIII -- Dark sienna
XIV -- Black violet ultramarine

I don't own any of those yet, and have only seen them once or twice. Though I think they are equally as rare (or rarer), for some reason they catalog for 1/3 the price of the final issued imperf sheetlets.

timbres667,

I don't own any used copies. Legitimate used copies are virtually unknown. Most, if not all, that can be found on the current market are CTO or fake.

Hi PostmasterGS - that's why I asked. These appeared to be single coloured sheets in colours in line with these descriptions. They do not look the same colours to my eyes as the perf sheets.

I should add that I've never seen any of these items outside of the catalogues so thanks very much for sharing them.

The colors of the sets are slightly different because of differences in scanning. Side-by-side they're much closer in appearance. I'll see if I can dig up a photo of the others somewhere.