Hitler Heads (cont.)

The Hitler Head issue is attractive because it has engraved designs, for values 10 pfennig and above (there were engraved and non-engraved versions of the 10 and 12 pfennig values), and each denomination is a different color. For young collectors of my generation, the biggest selling points were that the set was attainable and, when completed, was attractive on an album page. With the multitude of different, yet contrasting colors, the set also had a striking appearance, similar to that of the U.S. 1938 Presidential set (the Prexies).

In the 1950s, when I was first attempting to assemble a set of Hitler Heads, there were a number of options available to me. My first step was to go to Woolworth’s Five and Dime and to the local hobby store looking for inexpensive packets of stamps containing a representative selection of the stamps I was seeking. I then attempted to trade with my many friends who collected stamps. My final options were to go to a local stamp store or write an approval dealer, such as H. E. Harris. Fortunately, the Grossman Premier World Stamp Album that I used at the time only pictured 15 of the 24 stamps included in the basic set, although there were blank spaces I could use to mount other values I might encounter. I was eventually successful in filling all of the spaces allotted for the Hitler issue in my album, plus a number of the other denominations and varieties that were not pictured.

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