Which must be a very odd introduction to what is really a note about Ukraine. Ukraine had a fairly rough start to its independence, with high inflation making the karbovanets a currency that was soon spiraling into 6-figure exchange rates against the $. The stamp with the highest face value issued by Ukraine was a single stamp issued in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of WW2: a stamp of - you guessed it! - 100,000 karbovanets. This made me wonder how much postal use this stamp saw, particularly since the currency was switched to the hriven a little over a year after its issue.
The first, rather obvious conclusion is that the stamp was not often used on inland mail, since the inland letter rate peaked at 20,000 krb in 1996. However, mail abroad was a different story. Mail to the CIS countries, particularly airmail, went into the low six figures during 1995-1996 and this stamp must have seen use for such mail. But it is for mail to non-CIS countries that the postal rates get really impressive. Which brings me to this letter:
This is a registered airmail express letter from Kiev to Arnhem in the Netherlands, part of a whole bundle of mail addressed to the CITO (an institution that conducted tests of English as a foreign language for students worldwide) in October 1995. Eight copies of the 100,000 stamp, a 50,000 stamp and four copies of the "V" letter stamp @ 10,000 krb each makes the total franking 890,000 krb. At the then current exchange rate used in postal calculations, this was equal to about $5.13, which is pretty cheap for such a letter.
I'm still looking for even higher frankings of the 100,000 stamp but I don't think I'll find many.
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