Hi, for completeness sake here is the answer I gave on Still's forum:
Ron,
Excellent find! This will get us a few steps further.
As stated before, the crown/U/B combination was in use before 1939.
The crown/U/R, together with Eastern-German stylized eagle from 1945 - early 50's.
So that were basically the two choices we had.
Since the eagle is now identified as a pre-WW2 Police acceptance stamp, the stamped parts of this set can easily be dated to the 1936-1939 German Police.
Early pre-war sets came in a slightly larger box, complete with cleaning tool. This box set without cleaning tool was available from 1936 onwards, so that provides us with the post-1936 time frame. The Crown/U/B marks were used until 1939, so that's the next limit.
Postwar Erma-sets have different boxing and different stamps, so this isn't a postwar commercial set. What I'm not sure about is the quality of the box and especially it's hinge. I've seen examples of boxes with a 12-screw layout, rather than the shown 8 screws. Perhaps the hinge was replaced one time or another. The size and layout of the box is correct.
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