Identifying peacetime and wartime Germania issues:
For 1905-1920 issues with Lozenge watermark, stamps printed before March, 1915 are called peacetime printings and those printed afterwards are called wartime printings. They can be hard to tell apart, but in general, peacetime issues are of better quality than the wartime issues.
There are a number of factors to look at to determine if a particular stamp is a wartime or peacetime printing. Most of these are not foolproof, but taken together, you can confidently identify about half of the stamps you come across:
Peacetime Printings
* Canceled before March 1915 - Definitively peacetime printing
* Finer lines
* Sharper lines
* Colors brighter
* Solid areas are solid
* Alignment of colors more centered
* Paper smoother (check back)
* Watermark easy to see
* Matt gum
* 2pf must be peacetime
* 75pf only after war
Wartime Printings
* Canceled after March 1915 - Possibly wartime printing
* Thicker lines
* Appears blurry
* Colors darker and drab
* Holes in solid areas
* Misaligned
* Paper rough (check back)
* Water mark harder to see (may need fluid)
* High-gloss gum
There are similar characteristics for the wide-format, high value Germania issues from the same series.
Peacetime Printings:
* White paper
* Clear gum
* 26 perf holes wide, may be either, but likely peacetime
Wartime Printings:
* Yellowish paper
* Yellowish gum
* 25 perf holes wide, must be wartime
Shades provide an additional hint. See the excellent site
GermanStamps.net for details. Although, different computer screens, cameras, and lighting make positive color identification on-line impossible. Use color guides on-line only for relative comparisons, and even that with caution. Color is best used with known reference stamps in front of you.
Identifying Type I and Type II printing methods on new color issues.
With the old two-color stamps there were two plates--one for each color. These had to be carefully aligned. When the new single color stamps were printed, they were initially printed with the two plates like before. Those type I prints also had to be aligned, and you can tell these when you get an impression like the middle stamp, where the cross is not properly aligned with the white area underneath it.
Later, these were printed with a single plate. These one-plate stamps are Type II, and they always have a clear white space behind the cross and perfect alignment of the H on the bottom right. The H should align with the frame above it and be vertically centered in its frame. Finally, the number shouldn’t touch their frames.
