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>> THE POLISH POST OFFICE IN DANZIG 1920-1925

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Poland had a number of official bodies in Danzig, including the Polish Commissioner General and officials concerning customs, railroads, etc. The mail of these officials to and from Poland was, as far as I have been able to discover, always handled by the PoLes themselves, even before the opening of the regular service for the public in 1925. I have not seen any examples of such mail and would be very interested in hearing from any members who have such examples. Presumably, such mail was franked with Polish official stamps and would be identified by the cancel and/or the return address.

Figure 1: A POLISH PARCEL CARD USED IN GDANSK, 1920.

The illustration shows a buff colored ex-Austrian parcel card overprinted in black. The card is printed in light blue. In the upper left, the Austrian arms and old value (12 heller) have been obliterated by five bars over the new value of 16 halerzy. In the upper right, the indicum is overprinted “POCZTA / (a rhombus) / POLSKA”. It is interesting to note that while both German and Austrian postal stationery were overprinted and used by the new Polish Post, Austrian parcel cards etc, were generally used, as the Polish Postal Service was organized mostly on Austrian lines.

Danzig Report  Nr. 29 - October - November - December - 1980, Page 3.