Value of rare(?) Luftwaffe album

[D_Dutch]

Hello all,

This week I purchased a large photograph album which included photographs of Göring, Sperrle, Ritterkreuzträger and other rare photographs mixed with common photographs of the owner of the album, like portrait photographs, trips to a lake and group shots. I always try to focus on documents but the photographs were so interesting that I decided to buy the album.

However, I e-mailed someone who researched the unit and it appears that more than half (At least 150 of the 239) of the photographs in my album were in an official Staffel photograph album which was most likely handed out to each soldier of the Staffel. The soldier probably mixed the official unit photographs with his own pictures and put them in an album, which I now have. Now, as almost all of the rare photographs were used in the official unit album which would most likely mean that there are dozens of similar photographs or even albums, would this decrease the album value? I thought I bought quite a rare photograph album but as there might be quite a few similar ones out there I'm not so sure it is still rare or if I overpaid.

[Mainemilitaria]

D-Dutch,
Most Albums contains thier share of "stock" photos....and most of these would have minimal value on the scale of things (and depending exactly what they are)...

Every "Serviceman" potentially had "photo albums" (especially in the early war period) so most are not especially valueable.... of course, High Award winners and High Officer's personal albums would be the exception, also anything "SS" or "KZ" related, U-Boat...Afrika Korps.... and so on...(like everything!).

Sounds like ALOT of pictures for "one album"...(?).... is everything mounted and identified? What size prints? Are any marked on the reverse? etc. (Show a few samples if you can)...
John G.

[Simon O.]

A very common thing, but as you can see, the trick for a collector is knowing which prints come from a unit photographer and which are taken by an individual soldier.

[D_Dutch]

Thank you both for your replies, much appreciated! The photograph album is quite large so enough room for all the photographs, even more actually. The photographs are most of the time not captioned on the back but when they do the caption is mostly post-war. The photograph pages are however captioned on top of the page. I put some photographs out of their photo-corner mounts and most do not have a photo stamp like Agfa-Lupex, Kodak etc. I have posted an example of one of the pages and the reverse of one of the photographs below. At the moment I'm not even sure if the photographs are war-time or post-war prints.