ABOUT

Let us introduce ourselves.

We are three collectors with collecting activities spanning over 30 years who have developed a special interest in the Postal War phenomenon (see definition below) and its postal history consequences, on which our collecting activities have focused.

Jan Heijs: has been collecting Postal War items since 1980; he also collects postal history items showing political propaganda where they did not lead to a Postal War. He is a member of (and contributor to) several philatelic research and study groups at national Dutch and international levels, such as: AIJP, Philatelic Academy of the Netherlands, RPSL, BDPh, FG Berlin, ArGe DDR, Deunot.

Wolfgang Elsner: has been collecting Postal War items since 1970 and is a specialist in the Berlin Postal War of 1948/49 as well as what is called ‘Classical Postal Wars before 1948’. He is a member of (and contributor to) several philatelic research and study groups at national German and international levels, such as: BDPh, FG Berlin.

Dieter Becker: has been collecting Postal War items since 1985. Member of (and contributor to) several German philatelic research and study groups.

We have not only been collecting Postal War material, but made our expertise publicly available to the benefit of other collectors. Apart from numerous articles published on specific subjects (see list), the following books have been published:

Jan Heijs: is the author of the ‘bible’ for postal war collectors, namely the “Specialised Catalogue of Postal War/Postkrieg 1870-2008”, currently in its 7th edition of 2011, 231 pages, in German/English. This catalogue was originally published, until its 5th edition (1984), by Dedo Burhop and is now known as the Burhop/Heijs catalogue.

Wolfgang Elsner: is the author of what has become, for Berlin and Germany collectors, the standard work on the Berlin Postal War: “Der Berliner Postkrieg 1948/49”, Handbuch und Katalog, 126 pages, 2005, in German.)

He also published a bilingual German/English book on pre-Cold War postal wars “Die “klassischen” Postkriege – vor 1948”; The “Classical ‘Postal Wars” - before 1948, 2011, 99 pages.