Uwe Bressem's MAILART

Already for some time hobby-stamps are circulating within the club, carrying the image of a German motorcycle police officer. Next to it a logo in which the arms of the city of Berlin can be recognised, crowned with 5 emerald points, so an offical state arm awarded by the governement. Further a kind of coat of arms, and below a line of text on the picture: "Police vignette, Entwurf und Idee U. Bressem 2006".

A little bit of Googling presented a certain Uwe Bressem. From the site we learned that he is a 5*****star restaurant chef, who has drawing and making (and selling) of vignettes as a hobby. I just sent an email to this man and yes indeed, he appeared to be the Uwe Bressem from the stamps. He turned out to be a very friendly man and directly spouted a lot of information.

First something about the vignettes: The stamps appeared to be issued in sheets of 4, with in between a middle tab carrying the logo's of the Berlin Police Force and the 35st division of the Berliner Polizei. The 3 in 35 stands for district 3, and the 5 for the police station.

In the lower margin is the text Mailart Wedding 2006. Off course the year of printing. But what is this Mailart Wedding? On my question on this Uwe sent a thick pack of information and some collectors stuff.

Wedding appears to be a district of Berlin where crime was a rampant for a long time. Local residents and police together thought of a plan to repel that crime, and with success. It mainly exists of assistance by citizens, and faster action by the police. The motto of this action was "Keine Chance für Langfinger" - no chance for thiefs. In the meantime this method is used in several districts and cities.

To thank the police Uwe Bressem organized an event for which everybody could send in a drawing, collage, comic or other artwork about the police: Mailart. In the Osterkirche the artwork has been exhibited from October 27th til November 26th of 2006. I received the catalogue from Uwe, and this shows a large number of really nice artistic works. Uwe made the vignettes shown above as his entry. Of this sheet 2000 pieces have been made, printed on gummed paper and perforated by hand.

The catalogue

Another entry

But what is interesting of this event for us as motorcycle philatelists??? While reading through the catalogue my eye fell on a letter wherein was asked for a "Pluskarte mit Polizei-motorrad" ("Pluscard" with police motorcycle). This kind of information always triggers me and makes me start to ask what this is about. "Pluscards" are special postcards that can be made on request by the German Post. On the frontside an image (approved by the postal organization) can be printed and on the address side an imprinted stamp: thus a real postal stationary item!

The image on this card shows the same drawing as used for the stamps, but now the logo's are placed in other positions. Below the image the sponsors of the Mailart project. As stamp the daisy stamp from the flower series is used, nicely resembling the Nimbus around the police logo.

Uwe, for a chef-cook a very nice Police project, and thank you very much for adding a nice postal stationary item to our collection.

Hans de Kloet

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