Sunday, January 6, 2013

OBRAZETS madness

Obrazets. The word, meaning "specimen", was printed on or perforated through specimen stamps of the Russian Empire and the USSR. Such specimina are very collectable and they all seem to be different. The 1905 War Orphans set came in sheets of 8 stamps across and the temptation to overprint those sheets with one letter per stamp - "Obrazets" was 8 letters in pre-1918 spelling - was impossible to resist, so you can find stamps of this issue with one letter of the word printed on the front.

A few years ago, some eBay vendor (I forget his name) started offering rather a lot of Obrazets material. All of the perforated variety, but interesting nevertheless. However, after the third lot my spider-sense started tingling. Here are a few examples:
 Okay, this one I almost believe.
Wait, what?

WHAA...? 

No. Just no.

On KOLCHAKS? OH fer chrissakes...

So it seems pretty clear that someone has been busy with his very own Obrazets perforator. Buyer beware...

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