FORERUNNERS

German Post Offices

The German Empire opened its first office on October 1, 1898, in Jaffa, followed on March 1, 1900, by an office in Jerusalem. Both offices closed in September  1914. Auxiliary collecting agencies existed in Ramleh (1902), Rishon LeTzion (1905), Wilhelma Hamidije (1905), Sarona (1910), Emmaus  (1909), Sebil Abu Nebbut (1902, a quarantine station  at the Jaffa city boundary), and Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate. Mail collecting points were also present in Beit Jala , Bethlehem, Hebron, and Ramallah.[55] Regular German stamps, and stamps overprinted in Turkish currency, and French currency were in use. Stamps were only cancelled at the three post offices, mail from the agencies received boxed  cachets. Italian post offices.  The Italian post office in Jerusalem opened on June 1, 1908. Temporarily closed between October 1, 1911, and November 30, 1912, it operated until September 30, 1914. The stamps used were regular (unoverprinted) Italian ones, stamps overprinted in Turkish currency, and stamps overprinted Gerusalemme.

Postage stamps and postal history of Palestine  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This page was last modified on 25 March 2017, at 14:49.


Postal Cards & Envelopes   Turkish Period Mail from the Holy Land, The Israel Philatelist, February 2011, p. 40.

Parcel Post & Parcel Card Usage Part 2 – Holy Land 1882 – 1954, The Israel Philatelist, Winter 2016, p. 16.

The postcard in Figure 8 was mailed on March 12, 1908 from Konigsberg to Jaffa (to a POB) at the Austrian Post Office!). It shows the typical German boxed “T” mark, Jaffa arrival dated March 24, 1908 and a bold “½Pi” in blue in manuscript.

Taxed Mail of the Ottoman Period – Part2, The Israel Philatelist, June 2012, pp. 95-96.

The other (Figure 9) had been mailed from Berlin on July 20, 1910 to the well known physician Dr. Wallach in Jerusalem. It has an encircled “T” mark, and again is inscribed “½ P” by blue pencil. The charges on all these postcards were collected in cash upon delivery.

Taxed Mail of the Ottoman Period – Part2, The Israel Philatelist, June 2012, p. 96.

German Levant Postal card imprinted 20 Para, to pay the postcard rate, from Jerusalem to Stuttgart, cancelled by “Jerusalem Deutsche Post
1 03 00” postmark. First day of German post in Jerusalem.

The Alexander Collection, http://alexandercollection.org/collectionitem.aspx#collection=91&item=901961136&startitem=1

(As of April 5, 2017)