Dealer: Adolf Dewitz

Mr. Adolf Dewitz was a dealer located in the German city of Konstanz (Constance) an Lake Constance (Bodensee), well in the vicinity of Friedrichshafen and the Zeppelin. Below a typical ad that ran in the German philatelic journals of that time /1/, and demonstrate that he even issued a catalog.

Dewitz ad for his catalog and shop

He was one of the many German dealers that used the preprinted format for their covers, but seemingly only as 59A covers. Other Dewitz covers, including even a 59A, are hand addressed. The three main examples are shown below. It seems that Dewitz only had 59A and 59B covers.

Standard Format

Handwritten PPC

Letter version

But what is the most important factor puts Dewitz together in a boat with von Meister, Bernet, Rascher, Guenzel and a few other suspected cases: they are numbered. And even if some Dewitz covers don't always have a number on the front, they invariably have a small Gothic D as a signature on the back of the cover, in the lower right corner. See the illustrations below. I have seen only one cover with a 2000#, but quite many in the range of 559x up to 5662.

only once so far ranges from 5590 to 5569

characteristic Gothic D found on all Dewitz covers

This now leads to an interesting coincidence. Most of the 59D covers of Mrs. S Rascher, also happen to carry exactly the same numbers

and are signed with a Gothic D on the back, as are the Dewitz covers. This seems to strongly indicate a cooperation between the two with Dewitz doing the placing of the numbers/record keeping. In this manner Dewitz probably got access to 59D covers and Rascher 59A, a trans-Atlantic trade.

References:

1) Das Postwertzeichen 5(1), p VII (July 4, 1930)