Monday, July 30, 2018

Sredinskii's postmark

By now it is generally accepted that the "final issue" of South Russia - the 100R surcharge on perf and imperf 1k stamps - never saw use in the Crimea. While the issue made sense in light of the final postal rates of Wrangel's mini-state, distribution was prevented by the collapse of the White front lines at Perekop and the hurried evacuation of the Crimea by White forces.
The Evil Genius behind this issue (as well as the Refugee Post non-issue and probably several forgeries as well) was a gentleman called Sredinskii, and he enthusiastically marketed this "prepared for use but not issued" "issue" among stamp dealers. And postmarked copies (I won't dignify them with the description "used") do exist. Here's one:

Have I seen this Sevastopol' postmark with serial letter "d" before? Yes I have! I have ONE record of another strike, a very crisp example from 1908 (from a parcel card, as it happens):

There is actually room for doubt that the two are strikes of the same postmark and the intervening 12 (at least!) years have obviously not been kind to this postmark, but for now I'll posit that these are strikes of the same postmark. But, here's where it gets interesting: I can't record a single Soviet-period strike of this postmark, and there were plenty of Soviet usages of other Imperial postmarks. So perhaps this postmark was no longer on the Crimea after 1920. Because it was in Sredinskii's pocket while he ran away to Turkey. 
Frankly, even if there were a post-1920 example of this postmark from Soviet Crimea, I'd simply conclude that Sredinskii spent a productive afternoon in the Sevastopol' post office, CTO-ing the heck of a few sheets of stamps.
Bah!

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