Henrik Mouritsen's pages

The bi-coloured issue of Denmark and DWI 1870-1905.

If you click on any of the stamps on this page, you will get an enlarged image!


Shortcuts to all the pages on this site. Under construction!
The Danish and DWI bi-colours 1870-1905 introductory page
An introduction to the bicolours - the eight introductory pages from my old traditional exhibit
The skilling issues Danish cover surveys 1851-1906
Beauties and gems of my postal history exhibit Beauties and gems of my traditional exhibit
I NEED HELP! My exhibiting track record
Exhibition material for sale Under construction
Haiti - introductory page
British stamps used in Port-au-Prince, Haiti The mute canceller of St. Thomas
Postal history of Haiti - République Septentrionale The R:S: overprints of Haiti
The first issue of Haiti 1881 The 1898 issue - under construction!

tete-beche The bi-colored stamps of Denmark and the Danish West-Indies (DWI) are among the most beautiful stamps in the world. They always show two nicely matching colors. The center is called the oval and the frame consists of very detailed ornaments. This design were used for danish stamps for more than 30 years. Through these 30 years many different settings and printings were produced. As an example the 4 and 8 øre values can be found in more than 120 different printings each.
The frames can be found in the normal position as well as in the inverted position. Both orientations of the frames are common in general; but this is not the case in each particular printing! In some printing all 100 or 200 frame cliches are oriented in the same direction (normal or inverted), but in many printings one or two cliches are oriented in the opposite direction compared to the rest of the 100 or 200 cliches. Finding and recognizing these isolated cliches is the art of collecting bi-colours. Illustrated here, you se a pair containing such an isolated cliche (12 øre, 29th printing, position 51).
I am a member of one of the two leading study groups on the bi-colored stamps of Denmark (and DWI). We work mainly on plate reconstructions and some postal history of this period. Our results are usually published in the leading journal of classical Danish philately: Nordisk Filatelistisk Tidsskrift.
You can get an introduction to the Danish Bi-coloured stamps by clicking here, where you can see the first 8 pages of my traditional exhibit. All printings of the skilling stamps are prenseted here. You can also take a look at some of the beauties and gems of my collection.
3_cents

Only known letter from Denmark to Burma before 1900


On this page you see some of the most beautiful stamps of my collection and one of the most interesting letters. The letter is the only known letter send from Denmark to Burma before year 1900. The letter shows the 30 øre rate for letters to overseas destinations. The letter is a double rate registered letter. Thus the rate was 30+30+16 øre, 76 øre.


Back to my Stamps and postal history - introductory page
Henrik Mouritsen
henrik.mouritsen@uni-oldenburg.de

Copyright © 1996-2000 Henrik Mouritsen
Most recent revision 14. April 2000