Schuberts Album deutscher Staaten und Städtewappen

Schuberts Album deutscher Staaten und Städtewappen

This book was issued in multiple editions by R. Schubert'sche Buchhandlung, Coburg, Germany. The book has no date, but based seems to have been finished and published in 1908, see advertising below.

The book contains 6 pages of arms with the German States, followed by 18 pages with 315 city arms. Later an appendix (Nachtrag) was issued with another 612 city arms in black and white, plus the arms of the Prussian provinces, Bavarian districts as well as the arms of Pope Pius X. There is, again, no date on the Nachtrag, but is probably issued around 1910.

Version 1	Version 2
Advertisement 1908	Nachtrag

Besides the album in multiple editions, the state arms were published as postcards and the city arms as stamps. Only from the first edition though.

I am not sure what the purpose was of the stamps. They can be found as individual stamps on for example eBay, but there has not been a separate collector's album, neither am I aware of the use as promotion. They were issued in sheets of 9 stamps each, basically using the pages of the album in half and adding a perforation. Only the last page of the album was reprinted to fit the last 9 images in a block of 9 (in the album they are spread over the whole page). The perforated stamps still show the page numbers of the album pages.

The 35 small sheets of 9 were again published as 'Deutsche Städtewappen in hochfeiner farbiger Ausführung mit Gold und Silber'. However, no publisher, date or price was included.

Wappen von Schuberts Album deutscher Staaten und Städtewappen/Coat of arms (crest) of Schuberts Album deutscher Staaten und Städtewappen

Index of the small sheets

I have not found any differences in the design of the arms between the different editions or the stamps.

The city arms in both the album and the appendix are generally quite accurate and clearly based on the seals used at the time by the towns. Only a few show rather different or unusual arms and all, except one, are from cities from all over the German Empire at the time. This includes towns now in Denmark, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and France. The only exception is Judenburg, which is a town in the Steiermark state of Austria. It is not even close to the German border, so why it is included is a mystery. There are surprisingly many arms from the Elsass-Lotharingen region, relatively more as for other regions and much more as in other publications from the same time.

Some cities were already merged with other cities at the time of publication, such as Kalk, which was incorporated into Köln already in 1888. This makes dating the album quite difficult.

Unusual arms are for example Merzig, which only received arms in 1909 and the Nachtrag shows an eagle for the city. Bühl is shown with three beehives instead of three small shields and for Langenberg, which received arms only in 1929, the arms of the Rheinprovinz are shown.

Five cities are listed each twice, both in the album, as in the appendix. For Nürnberg this is not strange, as the city used two different arms, one shown in the album, the other in the appendix. Similarly, Rheydt had received new arms in 1896 and this was corrected in the appendix. Unclear is why Allenstein, Neuhaldensleben and Plauen are included twice with the same arms.

A mistake in the appendix is Ehrendorf, which did not exist at the time in Germany. It is identified as Erbendorf, hence a spelling error.

The only real mystery is the arms listed for Nütschow-Eichenthal. This is not a city, but until 1939 it was just an estate (Gutsbezirk Nütschow) and glass factory (Eichenthal) approximately 45 km east of Rostock in the North of Germany. Today it still has just a handful of inhabitants (10 farms). It thus clearly was not a city, not even a village, and the arms listed are not known in the current municipality. Why this was included and how the publisher even heard of the tiny place and where these arms were found, remains a mystery.

click on the images below to enlarge

State arms

Postcards issued

If all State arms from the album would have been issued, there should be 25 cards. I am aware of the cards shown below. The cards are issued after 1905 as they have two sections for the address. Before 1905 'undivided backs' were used, with the address on the back and text on the front. I have seen one card posted in 1908, but no other used cards.