Is there anything that makes a collector of postal history sadder than the sight of those tell-tale rectangular pale spots where a stamp used to be? Missing stamps are not just ugly, they decrease the value of a cover enormously, and they can make it difficult to understand the story behind the cover. So when I saw this cover, my heart just sank:
This cover was sent in March 1920 from the Vladivostok - Kharbin TPO (line 264) to Tomsk, and was sent on to Perm'. Missing stamp at lower left: almost certainly a 50k stamp since the correct rate was 1.50R for an inland letter. Tragic, isn't it? A nice TPO cover from 1920 and this happens and wait a minute......
The "To pay" mark (from the line 264 TPO no less...) tells a different story, because the amount that was entered in the center was 1r. Twice the deficiency...so the missing postage was apparently 50k. And now it's a wholly different story. The postage due exactly covers the value of the missing stamp, so the stamp falling off had happened sometime soon after the postmark was applied, and a(nother?) postman slapped on the postage due marking.
The cover didn't reach Perm' until January 1921.
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