tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49721490671313277552024-03-13T23:24:28.038-07:00Acts of Random PhilatelyDr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-52794391897156802522018-12-22T18:44:00.000-08:002018-12-22T18:44:05.863-08:00Hidden gems of the Civil WarThe Civil War in Siberia was pretty much over by the end of October 1922. A few weeks later, the Far Eastern Republic was dissolved and absorbed into the RSFSR as the Far Eastern District (DVK) of the RSFSR. While there was some semi-farcical fighting around Yakutsk in 1923, nothing much happened after that.<br />
However, the <i>stamps</i> of the Civil War had a surprisingly long after-life in the DVK. The DVR Monogram issue made a brief reappearance during November-December 1922 after having been invalidated by Diterikhs in August 1922, although the DVR stationery cards are seen used in 1923 as blanks. Diterikhs' PZK issue was taken out of use almost immediately after the fall of Vladivostok on 25 October 1922, but the Vladivostok Arms issue of early 1921 was used as late as April 1923 in the Vladivostok area. The Chita definitives of the FER were also introduced in the Vladivostok area in late 1922 and continued to be used all the way to 28 February 1924, when they were invalidated. During 1923 they had been joined by "D.V." surcharges in gold kopeks on RSFSR definitives, which were only used in the territory of the former Far Eastern Republic. These, too, were taken out of use after 28 February 1924. Incidentally, that issue always confused me, since there were large numbers of the Chita issue in stock...<br />
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Meanwhile, in the rest of the RSFSR, the 1922 and 1923 rubles continued to lose value and postal rates continued to skyrocket. This didn't really stop until the first of the gold currency Small Head definitives were issued in October 1923. The final months of 1923 were a fascinating period in RSFSR postal history, with 1922 rubles stamps, 1923 rubles stamps and gold currency stamps all being used to frank mail.<br />
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In the DVK this was never an issue, since the entire area had been on a gold currency basis since September 1920 (Vladivostok area) and May 1921 (rest of the FER), so the DVK adopted the Small Heads stamps without any further complications, apart from a few small adjustments in postal rates.<br />
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However! The Small Heads definitives were accepted in the DVK as soon as they were issued. I've spent a long time looking for a mixed franking of Small Heads and Chita/"D.V." stamps - they must be very rare - but you can find pre-February 1924 usages of Small Heads definitives from the DVK.<br />
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Here's an example: a November 1923 wrapper from Chita to Vyatka, franked 2x1 gold kopek in Small Heads. I've collected Siberia postal history since the late 1980s and this is the second example of Far Eastern use of the Small Heads that I've seen. A gem!</div>
<br />Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-6180063511050058152018-11-26T22:11:00.001-08:002018-11-26T22:11:31.697-08:00Postal forgeriesWhen the USSR fell apart in 1991, things got a little...loose for awhile. In the resulting chaos, some clever people with access to a decent printing shop started producing forgeries of Russian definitives, which were used quite widely on commercial mail in the mid-1990s. The 25R in particular is easy to spot with its lurid pink shade and terrible perforation, but later forgeries (of higher values) were more sophisticated.<br />
This cover popped up on eBay recently:<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_GxfjgXuCq4/W_zfQmDQAoI/AAAAAAAAAdE/CmH-zMohk5oKWyJoKaeb12cx0I_k8Yw0wCLcBGAs/s1600/Belarus%2Bforgery%2Bcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1448" height="221" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_GxfjgXuCq4/W_zfQmDQAoI/AAAAAAAAAdE/CmH-zMohk5oKWyJoKaeb12cx0I_k8Yw0wCLcBGAs/s320/Belarus%2Bforgery%2Bcover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Yeah, you don't exactly need a magnifying glass to spot that those 5R definitives look a little off. With a magnifying glass it gets even more obvious:<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BCwwI7_w51A/W_zfc4ICnWI/AAAAAAAAAdI/0dUGyYbNwUEWTei3_B2siuDj_LuxAGGHwCLcBGAs/s1600/Belarus%2Bforgery%2Bdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="495" height="304" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BCwwI7_w51A/W_zfc4ICnWI/AAAAAAAAAdI/0dUGyYbNwUEWTei3_B2siuDj_LuxAGGHwCLcBGAs/s320/Belarus%2Bforgery%2Bdetail.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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My best guess is that these were produced on a color photocopier and perforated by, um, any means available. I haven't seen it described before and this 1992 cover from Gomel' 19 is the only example I've seen. And by the way, I would love to read a good article on these postal forgeries - they are interesting and very collectable and I want to know more about them!Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-42815493941668318212018-10-07T21:17:00.000-07:002018-10-07T21:17:20.553-07:00The presumption of innocence or the presumption of guilt?Amazingly, I won't be talking about recent political events in the US.<br />
Suppose we are confronted by a stamp issue that is not documented in official publications of any kind. And no, those goofy "certificates of authenticity" you see for several dodgy Russian Civil War issues don't count, for obvious reasons.<br />
There might be some references to the stamps in contemporary publications, like newspapers, but I advise against looking at contemporary philatelic publications as being very useful. All too often, those publications were the victims of unscrupulous correspondents who had something to gain by an issue looking respectable, and an article in a philatelic magazine conveyed a lot of respect!<br />
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Next step: look for convincing postal usages. That may or may not be difficult or impossible. The only postal usages may have been on internal postal forms, or on items which had a minute survival rate. And even postal usages which look convincing really need expert opinion to be assessed realistically. As an example, here's a fake Nikolaevsk-na-Amur'e cover, offered on Delcampe in 2010:<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WeFQQio6bxk/W7rY42xG7zI/AAAAAAAAAcg/j6JmMh_HYGQuZSMij3ItFIDKVzqbwMA5gCLcBGAs/s1600/cover%2Bfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="659" height="235" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WeFQQio6bxk/W7rY42xG7zI/AAAAAAAAAcg/j6JmMh_HYGQuZSMij3ItFIDKVzqbwMA5gCLcBGAs/s320/cover%2Bfront.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It takes a fair bit of specialist knowledge to spot the problems with this cover: it's a fake. That even alleged experts can be fooled is demonstrated by this certificate:</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o0hYhumeE_E/W7rZUiwd0II/AAAAAAAAAco/fMBs2t2h4bYBZosAFJgel6-THuNcgvkKwCLcBGAs/s1600/NNA%2Bfake%2Bpostcard%2BHovest%2Bcertificate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1363" data-original-width="983" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o0hYhumeE_E/W7rZUiwd0II/AAAAAAAAAco/fMBs2t2h4bYBZosAFJgel6-THuNcgvkKwCLcBGAs/s320/NNA%2Bfake%2Bpostcard%2BHovest%2Bcertificate.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
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It's a silly forgery, one of the many forgeries that were circulating in Moscow during the 1990s. But it fooled this Mr. Hovest, who at one point was an accredited expert for Russia!</div>
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So do we give an issue like this the benefit of the doubt and presume its innocence?</div>
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I believe we should not. I think we should regard every even slightly questionable issue as guilty until proven innocent, and proving innocence is and should be difficult! For me, the NNA issue is still guilty...</div>
<br />Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-86300632515972363572018-08-18T18:33:00.000-07:002018-08-18T18:33:44.582-07:00Missing stamps and missing stampsIs 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:<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mwNQF3eZItw/W3io2tA7PII/AAAAAAAAAcM/Qbn4oqEcPBciUGn-Ry4B2eRaaF-FBKndQCLcBGAs/s1600/missing%2Bstamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="1256" height="261" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mwNQF3eZItw/W3io2tA7PII/AAAAAAAAAcM/Qbn4oqEcPBciUGn-Ry4B2eRaaF-FBKndQCLcBGAs/s320/missing%2Bstamp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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......<br />
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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.<br />
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The cover didn't reach Perm' until January 1921.Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-27783187735168028042018-07-30T00:26:00.001-07:002018-07-30T00:26:17.807-07:00Sredinskii's postmarkBy 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.<br />
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:<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--BWbltIUAwo/W168NDkzrQI/AAAAAAAAAbw/pc6GWwfv5WQT6js0uonXBbYkVNm_Y-xuwCLcBGAs/s1600/Sevastopol%2Bpostmark%2Bon%2B100R%2Bstamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1128" height="211" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--BWbltIUAwo/W168NDkzrQI/AAAAAAAAAbw/pc6GWwfv5WQT6js0uonXBbYkVNm_Y-xuwCLcBGAs/s320/Sevastopol%2Bpostmark%2Bon%2B100R%2Bstamp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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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):<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5fXF_yT1bHc/W168boLT09I/AAAAAAAAAb0/ojdNqYz6lgMLuFHlFUo9SXvSm6iEne8YQCLcBGAs/s1600/SEVASTOPOL%2B5%2Bd2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5fXF_yT1bHc/W168boLT09I/AAAAAAAAAb0/ojdNqYz6lgMLuFHlFUo9SXvSm6iEne8YQCLcBGAs/s320/SEVASTOPOL%2B5%2Bd2.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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Bah!</div>
<br />Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-77872760726491069062018-06-22T21:12:00.002-07:002018-06-22T21:12:58.619-07:001937 Geological CongressSpecial Event postmarks of the USSR can be fun to collect, at least as far as the pre-war period is concerned. The one aspect about them that I have trouble with is that they tend to occur on blatantly philatelic covers. Ick!<br />
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This cover is icky for another reason: the spectacularly acidic glue that was used to affix the registration label securely discolored the paper of the envelope around it. Ick! But this particular postmark is uncommon so one can be flexible...<br />
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But the best part of this envelope is the vertical pair of the 15k Gor'kii stamps: <i>imperforate</i>! Clearly a philatelist was at work here...Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-90288627200546111142018-06-12T23:42:00.001-07:002018-06-12T23:42:39.521-07:00A fun bit of FER (postal) history<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PWCS8u7lP2I/WyC5GbX4GoI/AAAAAAAAAbA/-H1hw4a_-UQBfqZHb8maCc70pJxz-x8IgCLcBGAs/s1600/1920%2Bvlad%2Btelegraf%2Ba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1239" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PWCS8u7lP2I/WyC5GbX4GoI/AAAAAAAAAbA/-H1hw4a_-UQBfqZHb8maCc70pJxz-x8IgCLcBGAs/s320/1920%2Bvlad%2Btelegraf%2Ba.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
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Telegraph postmarks from Vladivostok are not that scarce, since the telegraph office apparently processed quite a bit of registered mail, even during the Civil War. But complete telegrams are a different matter. This is an example from October 1920, showing the very scarce postmark with serial letter "a". Nice enough already.<br />
The telegram was sent from Kharbin to Vladivostok, by a Mr. Pogrebetskii. And if you're a banknote collector, you know that name.<br />
A.I. Pogrebetskii was the author of a very fine book on the monetary history of the Civil War in Siberia and the Far East. The book, published in Kharbin in 1924, gives a very detailed review of prices, banknote issues and redemptions during 1917-1923 and let me tell you, it's a complicated subject! Pogrebetskii was a dealer in banknotes in Kharbin, and it's possible he dealt in stamps as well. His book actually mentions the Civil War stamp issues of Siberia too, but it's not very detailed on that subject.<br />
Before he became an emigre banknote dealer in Kharbin, Pogrebetskii was a politician, a member of the SR party. In fact, he was an SR member of the Far Eastern Republic parliament. The FER allowed multi-party politics and the bolsheviks, mensheviks and SR were all represented in the FER parliament. How much of a sham this was is demonstrated by the events of November 1922. With the defeat of the final White enclave in October 1922 and the withdrawal of Japanese intervention forces (except from Sakhalin), there was no longer any need for a "buffer" state in Eastern Siberia, and the FER government asked the RSFSR for permission to be absorbed. The vote in the FER parliament was unanimously in favor of this proposal....mostly because the menshevik and SR members of parliament had been arrested a few days earlier. Except Pogrebetskii, who was away in Kharbin on business at the time...<br />
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Pogrebetskii also wrote a book on Chinese banknotes and was still active as late as 1930. I can't trace what happened to him after that, but if he was still around in Kharbin in 1945 he probably met a messy end.Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-28569168278933180732018-01-14T21:22:00.002-08:002018-01-14T21:22:39.712-08:00Confessions of a postmark collector<div class="MsoNormal">
While stamp collecting certainly offers enough room for a
lifetime of collecting, once you enter the fuzzily-defined world of postal
history the possibilities for specialization are almost limitless. “classical”
postal history tends to focus on postal rates and routes, but the collecting of
postmarks – technically known as <i>markophily</i>
– has been around for a long time as well. And I don’t even care if we’re
talking about collecting postmarks on loose stamps or on complete items that
went through the mail: the postmarks themselves are the subject of study.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I fell in with the postmark collecting crowd early on when I
made the acquaintance of Peter Ashford. Peter wasn’t just a fine student of
Transcaucasian stamps and Russian prestamp postal history, he also had a
life-long interest in postmarks: specifically, Imperial Russian postmarks from
the area now known as Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan – Transcaucasia for
short. This is a perfect example of what I would call Area Collecting: you rope
off one geographical area and collect the postmarks from a certain historical
period. Since I believe in copying the best, I applied the same model to
collecting postmarks myself, and concentrated on the postmarks of the Crimea up
to about 1945.<o:p></o:p></div>
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An alternative would be to not limit the geographical area
but to limit the period more severely. In that way you could collect, say, the
first postmarks of the post-1857 period, the so-called Berlin types. You see
that here you pretty quickly find yourself collecting a particular postmark <i>type</i>, like the Berlin types, or the
dot-numerals. Perhaps a better example would be the “mute” postmarks of WW1, of
which the use was limited to a few years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Plan C is to concentrate on postmarks with a specific
function, like railway TPO postmarks, or ship mail postmarks. I have a
collection of the postmarks of Telegraph offices of the pre-WW2 period (about
which I’ll tell you more someday). Here, limitations in terms of postmark
types/function and limitations in terms of the period of use quickly start to
overlap.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Plan D is to go for looks: collect postmarks of a particular
appearance. For many years I collected the bilingual postmarks of the USSR,
1924-1940, and you can certainly spend a lifetime collecting those.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course you can also mix and match and collect, say the
oval railway postmarks of Ukraine up to 1918, or the bilingual “Express Mail”
postmarks of the USSR from Central Asia (and good luck with that latter
choice!).</div>
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The point is…there’s really no limit to how you can define a
postmark collection. Just pick something that you can have fun with and won’t
break your budget.<o:p></o:p></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-45794873982549908392017-02-24T20:56:00.000-08:002017-02-24T20:56:36.328-08:00Nobody beats Hungary. Nobody.Over the past two centuries the world has seen quite a few outbreaks of hyperinflation. (by the way, the rather arbitrary definition of hyperinflation is inflation of 50% or greater per <i>month</i>. That's bad but hardly the usual "your money loses half its value in hours" thing you think of when you hear "hyperinflation") After WW1 there was a whole rash of them in Europe with Germany of course the best known. When the new "Rentenmark" was introduced in late 1923 it was equal to 1,000,000,000,000 old marks, so 12 zeroes got crossed off. That was pretty impressive! The USSR went through its own hyperinflation, of course, and when the new gold ruble was equal to 50,000,000,000 old rubles so a little over 10 zeroes. Still pretty good.<br />
Later there were outbreaks in China, Greece, several Latin American and African countries of which Zimbabwe had a good one, too. Before Zimbabwe essentially gave up on having a national currency they were on their <i>fourth</i> "Zimbabwe dollar", and somewhere along the way a banknote of 100,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars was issued, which is a popular item on eBay.<br />
But the record is still Hungary after WW2. The amazing thing there is the speed with which everything happened. On May 1, 1945 the first postwar rates were introduced and the inland letter rate was set at 1 Pengö. By early January 1946 it was 600 Pengö, which is impressive but after that, things just became surreal. What was particularly interesting was the Hungarian government's attempts to keep renaming the currency. So the Pengö was followed by the ezerPengö (1000 Pengö), the MilPengö (1,000,000 Pengö), the Milliard Pengö (1,000,000,000 Pengö) and the BilPengö (1,000,000,000,000 Pengö). By now we're in <i>early July 1946</i>. That's right, the letter rate went up by a factor of about 60 billion in 6 months! July 1946 then just went further into funny numbers, with the introduction of an adoPengö ("tax-Pengö") not really helping. When the Forint was introduced on 1 August 1946 the stabilization rate deleted TWENTY-NINE ZEROES.<br />
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This (second - they had a first run at it post-WW1) Hungarian Hyperinflation is of course very interesting philatelically as well. The Collector's Club of Chicago has published a really nice book on the subject which is available free as an e-book too. Recommended reading!<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-72656496611895436912016-10-30T18:05:00.001-07:002016-10-30T18:05:47.658-07:00An unpleasant man behind some stampsMost collectors will be aware of the "Western Army" issues, which saw a tiny bit of use (mostly on contrived envelopes sent within Mitau) during 1919. They're associated with a gentleman usually referred to as Colonel (or even Prince!) Avalov-Bermondt.<br />
Very few collectors will know much about this unpleasant character. In the first place, his name is just Bermondt. During 1918 he claimed to be the adopted son of a Georgian prince called Avalashvili, and started hyphenating his name as a result. he also adopted the title of Prince while he was at it. Needless to say, claims like that were easy to make in 1918 and impossible to check.<br />
The appalling story of the Western Army is easy enough to read about but it's only after its final defeat that Bermondt's story starts getting really unpleasant. He hovered around the fringes of various Russian/German extreme right-wing groups in the early 1920s before he went all the way and became the leader of the Russian National-Socialist Movement (usually abbreviated as RoND). Here's a picture of him at a fun little get-together:<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yJtmzGZssZc/WBaWxu32XRI/AAAAAAAAAZM/Xua5VwbbO9oEY7L7QrxUO286VqUQiqgDwCLcB/s1600/Avalov%2BBermondt%2Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yJtmzGZssZc/WBaWxu32XRI/AAAAAAAAAZM/Xua5VwbbO9oEY7L7QrxUO286VqUQiqgDwCLcB/s320/Avalov%2BBermondt%2Bpic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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That's Bermondt in the middle. To his right is Anastasii Vonsyatskii (Anastase Vonsiatsky in Americanized spelling) about whom half a wonderful book has been written ("The Russian Fascists - tragedy and farce in exile" by John Stephan, which I recommend to everyone). To Bermondt's left is Alexander Kazembek, another interesting case.</div>
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Bermondt eventually ended up in the USA, where he died in New York in 1972.</div>
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Bah!</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-24907450969872747742016-09-25T11:22:00.003-07:002016-09-25T11:22:44.561-07:00The 1928 SpartakiadSpartakiads were giant, usually international sporting events, usually organized in the Soviet Union. The first Soviet event was the August 1928 Summer Spartakiad in Moscow (also referred to as the All-Union Spartakiad). Here's a wonderful postcard celebrating the event, designed by Gustav Klutsis, who did a whole series of posters for the event that I urge you to Google. They're beautiful examples of Soviet avant-garde photo montage.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b7K4h2FRsvQ/V-gU-co5umI/AAAAAAAAAYM/FFSLgHMkXvM2ly_qLf1inQf_azmazcAYgCLcB/s1600/spartakiada%2Bpostcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b7K4h2FRsvQ/V-gU-co5umI/AAAAAAAAAYM/FFSLgHMkXvM2ly_qLf1inQf_azmazcAYgCLcB/s320/spartakiada%2Bpostcard.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>
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Now here's the funny thing. We all know the very handsome stamps issued for the Spartakiad in 1935. Except there was no Spartakiad in 1935, there was a Winter Spartakiad in 1936 in Oslo, Norway. But the 1928 Spartakiad did leave one philatelic trace:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-isc-9YbCJd0/V-gVjm7AvWI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/uyitRj3dgtgCKVFpx_KUPwkAYOil417oQCLcB/s1600/spartakiada%2Bpostmark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-isc-9YbCJd0/V-gVjm7AvWI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/uyitRj3dgtgCKVFpx_KUPwkAYOil417oQCLcB/s320/spartakiada%2Bpostmark.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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While most pre-war Special Event postmarks are fairly easy to find, thanks to those pesky philatelists, this postmark seems to be a rarity. This is the only one I've ever seen. </div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-5505816654235454592016-08-24T14:58:00.002-07:002016-08-27T00:20:26.695-07:00Uzbek ennui<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s no accounting for taste. I happen to like definitive
stamps that are well-designed and issued in a range of attractive colors. The
Dutch definitives of my childhood (the beautifully simple “en profil” Juliana
stamps) probably had something to do with that, and I still have a soft spot
for the recess printed high values of that set. But some definitive sets are
difficult to like.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1883-1884 Great Britain issued the dullest definitive set
in its history. The designs weren’t that great to begin with but the <i>coup de grace</i> was the decision to use
just two colors: dull purple for the lower values and dull green for the higher
values. What a boring set! I suspect this idiotic decision involved enormous
sideburns, syphilis and laudanum.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Which brings me to Uzbekistan. Obviously. The Central Asian
republics have spent the past 25 years developing their national identities.
Uzbekistan did so under the harsh reign of Islam Karimov, in office since 1990
and one of two remaining “Soviet survivors” among the post-Soviet heads of
state. Initially, Uzbekistan overprinted some old Soviet definitives, while four
stamps showing the flag and coat of arms were uninspired but functional. When a
small definitive stamp showing the coat of arms was issued in 1994 it was hard
to predict that it would be the first value in the dullest set of post-Soviet definitives,
with bunches of values issued until 2006.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There are a few things to like about this set. In the first
place, the way the country name was spelled changed, with values prior to 1998
inscribed UZBEKISTON (Cyrillic)/UZBEKISTAN (Latin) while starting in 1998 it
was a Latin O’ZBEKISTON. The currency unit was given as either SUM (Cyrillic),
SO’M (Latin, a single value issued in 1999) or nothing at all. Of course high
inflation meant that new, higher values were needed regularly. Five values in
the set were in a larger format than the others, just to add further weirdness.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But the colors! Except for the first 1994 stamp in the set,
all values are in shades of red, blue or green. And usually they’re the same
shade. For example, the last batch of values was issued in 2006: 9 stamps. Two stamps
are the same shade of light green, three stamps are in an identical light blue
and four stamps are the exact same shade of light red. There must have been a
lot of cursing and squinting going on in the Uzbekistan post offices as postal
officials tried to distinguish between different stamps. Sometimes all the
values in a batch were the same color, like 4 values issued in 2004 being the
same shade of light green. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6enzujwDhMQ/V74YR1FGQeI/AAAAAAAAAXo/BkNTSxQRQNYQbvOkiW2ZruBzXfLsTmCswCLcB/s1600/Uzbek%2Bstamps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="104" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6enzujwDhMQ/V74YR1FGQeI/AAAAAAAAAXo/BkNTSxQRQNYQbvOkiW2ZruBzXfLsTmCswCLcB/s320/Uzbek%2Bstamps.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Really?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In all, 57 values were issued and they make a damn
dull page in your album, I can tell you. Kind of fun to collect on cover, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSK67vKf-Mo/V74YYDS7c8I/AAAAAAAAAXs/6ooKihzFS8E99WdYSCnkO5wZ5WGsO4jugCLcB/s1600/Uzbek%2Bcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSK67vKf-Mo/V74YYDS7c8I/AAAAAAAAAXs/6ooKihzFS8E99WdYSCnkO5wZ5WGsO4jugCLcB/s320/Uzbek%2Bcover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Incredibly, the set of definitives that followed this
snore-fest was even worse…<o:p></o:p></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-54779704956846607322016-07-14T23:00:00.002-07:002016-07-14T23:01:56.908-07:00Hundred thousand!In the US there's a candy bar called "100 grand" which was once used during a memorable class on how much lawsuits cost the company, so don't get into any!<br />
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 <i>karbovanets</i> 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 <i>hriven</i> a little over a year after its issue.<br />
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:<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kxivu34GQfU/V4h6BcSt8OI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/gPf0ipE9kg8krcPzxGI-y0vOqpreP7MFACLcB/s1600/100000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kxivu34GQfU/V4h6BcSt8OI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/gPf0ipE9kg8krcPzxGI-y0vOqpreP7MFACLcB/s320/100000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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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. </div>
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I'm still looking for even higher frankings of the 100,000 stamp but I don't think I'll find many.</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-4564814663769093032016-05-31T21:20:00.001-07:002016-05-31T21:20:11.061-07:00A call for help!Dearly beloved readers (both of you!),<br />
I am in the middle of writing an article about Azerbaijan, 1992-1994 and I would very much like to include information about postal tariffs. However, I have never seen any publication about these tariffs and can only reconstruct incomplete information from the covers in my collection.<br />
<br />
So here is my call for help: if you know anyone in Azerbaijan who might have this information, please ask them to contact me! I have long wished for contacts with collectors in Azerbaijan itself since I appear to be the only person outside Azerbaijan who collects modern Azerbaijan! So: all contacts welcome, and contacts who are interested in postal tariffs 1992-1994 even more welcome!<br />
<br />
Thank you!<br />
<br />
IvoDr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-14731172672808627242016-05-26T20:51:00.000-07:002016-05-27T01:49:57.878-07:00An impossible Civil War coverNo cover has ever baffled me as much as this one. I have zero doubt that it is genuine. For one thing, it's part of the Zhdanovich correspondence - a large correspondence addressed to members of the Zhdanovich family, mostly living in the Crimea - but it's also too odd to really be a forgery. And that's not even mentioning the censor marking, etc.<br />
Let's start by taking a look at the front:<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-43fifMW1G5Y/V0fBg8jFHKI/AAAAAAAAAWw/GSlk9Vwmx_scX6QOxBHzrirDuTDMcaEDwCLcB/s1600/Impossible%2Bfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-43fifMW1G5Y/V0fBg8jFHKI/AAAAAAAAAWw/GSlk9Vwmx_scX6QOxBHzrirDuTDMcaEDwCLcB/s320/Impossible%2Bfront.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's a registered letter, sent in March 1919 from Vladivostok. It's addressed to Simferopol' on the Crimea.</div>
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What?</div>
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Obviously, the direct mail route from Vladivostok to the Crimea through Siberia and European Russia was no longer available by then. Mail from Eastern Siberia to Europe generally went via Japan, the USA and Great Britain. But it's very much unclear if there was any way to get mail from Britain to the Crimea, and that's not even mentioning the fact that the Crimea was about to get its (second) period of Soviet Rule in April 1919.</div>
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But the puzzle just gets weirder when you look at the reverse:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1O5mhuL6lHk/V0fCe60H0mI/AAAAAAAAAW4/FwJAwDHkSLEu440sGbcL5ZVFmfmeb-yRQCLcB/s1600/Impossible%2Breverse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1O5mhuL6lHk/V0fCe60H0mI/AAAAAAAAAW4/FwJAwDHkSLEu440sGbcL5ZVFmfmeb-yRQCLcB/s320/Impossible%2Breverse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We see the usual Vladivostok censor marking, and a cachet indicating that postage was paid in cash, as entirely normal for inland registered letters from this period. The rate should be 1.05 ruble. But! There's also a Simferopol' arrival marking! And a manuscript note that the letter was received on 13 September 1919...Somehow, the letter got to its destination, half a year after it was sent. At least 3 months of that delay were probably due to the second Soviet rule over Crimea, which ended in late June/early July.</div>
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The great problem the Whites faced in the Civil War was that their zones of influence and staging areas for attack were such disjointed, peripheral areas. No two zones of White influence (West, North, South and Siberia) ever succeeded in making much contact, let alone coordinating their military activities. As a result, the Red Army could (and did) defeat them one by one. Kolchak, Yudenich, Denikin...they all failed, one by one.</div>
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Another result of this geographical disjointedness is that I have NEVER seen an item of mail that went from one zone of White influence to another. Except for this letter.</div>
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It may not look that exciting but this may be the most unusual letter from the White side in the Civil War.</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">©</span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> Ivo Steijn, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ivo Steijn with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.</span></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-7244327542202268672016-04-21T20:42:00.002-07:002018-01-09T00:12:57.094-08:00Another pleasing Civil War item from the CrimeaI make no excuse for showing yet another Civil War item from the Crimea, as they are so fascinating and so scarce. This is an October 1919 postcard from Dzhankoi to Simferopol':<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b8vr8M7bTlY/VxmcI1PB-aI/AAAAAAAAAWc/v1V_9HkLFywjyCtFJx8o9S4s6OUtTmxLACLcB/s1600/Crimea%2B1919%2Bfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b8vr8M7bTlY/VxmcI1PB-aI/AAAAAAAAAWc/v1V_9HkLFywjyCtFJx8o9S4s6OUtTmxLACLcB/s320/Crimea%2B1919%2Bfront.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Slightly overfranked since the correct rate was 35k (and the 5k postcard was still valid for postage, as shown by some 1920 items), but utterly non-philatelic. Addressed to a Irma Ottovna Zeel (clearly a German, as borne out by the text of the reverse), but I'm stumped by one line in the address, just before the name of the addressee: "Neft Poosa" is my best guess...? Anyone? Help?</div>
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Edit: Pavel Pavlov points out that what I misread as "Neft Poosa" actually reads "kvart Grossa", short for "Gross' apartment". </div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-64081388880685271742016-03-15T23:19:00.002-07:002016-03-15T23:19:34.572-07:00Those damn Town Post offices...I have already spoken a few times of the unpleasant discoveries that await the unwary postmark collector, and Town Post (sub-)offices are among them. They're not listed in any postal list that I know of, and I suppose it would take painstaking sifting through the Post-Telegraph Journal to find hard information on their opening and closing, let alone existence.<br />
Here are a few Crimean examples, to set the scene:<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ESmKorXPCKQ/Vuj59mpvI6I/AAAAAAAAAWA/5atl1_Yq9E4sBit4SPa_bwbcvSbmfZPPA/s1600/Sevastopol%2BGor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ESmKorXPCKQ/Vuj59mpvI6I/AAAAAAAAAWA/5atl1_Yq9E4sBit4SPa_bwbcvSbmfZPPA/s320/Sevastopol%2BGor.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is Sevastopol' Town Post sub-office, one of two postmarks I know from that place and definitely the oddest. I found it in Bristol while visiting Ian Baillie.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o33uJNqErAA/Vuj59sbcRpI/AAAAAAAAAWE/Ku5J453R7RAqX0UnZUhUNOMDlg9Zav9JA/s1600/Simferopol%2BGor%2Blarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o33uJNqErAA/Vuj59sbcRpI/AAAAAAAAAWE/Ku5J453R7RAqX0UnZUhUNOMDlg9Zav9JA/s320/Simferopol%2BGor%2Blarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A nice registered cover from Simferopol' Town Post sub-office, serial letter "a", but the same serial letter was also used for a smaller postmark:</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Po9p7ZGMEBQ/Vuj5-Pu50gI/AAAAAAAAAWI/NsJYvec_0ZcbBIDUzVkL8woe3TKFsC6rQ/s1600/Simferopol%2BGor%2Bsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Po9p7ZGMEBQ/Vuj5-Pu50gI/AAAAAAAAAWI/NsJYvec_0ZcbBIDUzVkL8woe3TKFsC6rQ/s320/Simferopol%2BGor%2Bsmall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Incidentally, under that British registration label is a Russian label identical to the label on the other cover. </div>
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What brought all this on? Well, eBay spat out this:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sd0sWkFCE5s/Vuj59pF7ZTI/AAAAAAAAAWM/CGxGnwwGuRYMub8ONF3h7MR0HPhYDTTVg/s1600/Odessa%2BGor%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sd0sWkFCE5s/Vuj59pF7ZTI/AAAAAAAAAWM/CGxGnwwGuRYMub8ONF3h7MR0HPhYDTTVg/s320/Odessa%2BGor%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A nice old postmark of Odessa's <i>second</i> Town Post sub-office. First time I've seen one, although Odessa specialists may have done better.</div>
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But you see the problem here...Town Post postmarks are like landmines for postmark collectors: you don't know where they are and how many there are. But they're very nice to find!</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-11040835817805973962016-01-31T12:51:00.001-08:002016-01-31T13:53:49.686-08:00The "Kiev-Odessa railway"? What?!This post is mostly a call for help as I am truly baffled by a postmark. The conundrum in question is on this cover:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uIfpIt2Cglo/Vq5xWJBQS4I/AAAAAAAAAVQ/dvy6KOZbSp8/s1600/Kiev%2BOdessa%2Bfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uIfpIt2Cglo/Vq5xWJBQS4I/AAAAAAAAAVQ/dvy6KOZbSp8/s320/Kiev%2BOdessa%2Bfront.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oheR1vhvU5c/Vq5xXzlKzrI/AAAAAAAAAVY/_2oua6DINuQ/s1600/Kiev%2BOdessa%2Breverse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oheR1vhvU5c/Vq5xXzlKzrI/AAAAAAAAAVY/_2oua6DINuQ/s320/Kiev%2BOdessa%2Breverse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is an 1872 letter from Kiev to Germany. The 10k stamp is canceled with a postmark reading KIEVSK.P.O./KIEVO-ODESSK.Zh.D. and I'm just not getting that. Let's start with the obvious: the postmark is recorded in a 2002 Kiryushkin & Robinson update, so at least I'm not the only one hallucinating. The part where I get puzzled is the concept of a Kiev-Odessa Railway in the first place. Any look at a railway map (like map S4 in K&R) will tell you such a line would be a bit of a beast. The TPO postmark of line 47-48 tells a bit of the story, being used on the line Zhmerinka-Volochisk and station number 1 being Zhmerinka also makes sense. From Kiev to Zhmerinka, then from Zhmerinka to Volochisk at the border and on to Germany (also note the rectangular German TPO mark on the front). So was the line from Kiev down to Zhmerinka (and on to Odessa in 1872) truly called the Kiev-Odessa Railway?</div>
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On one website I found the following schematic detailing the mergers of railways in Ukraine:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WxhtwHJw75k/Vq5zijwww8I/AAAAAAAAAVk/zOnQ7WlHdQ4/s1600/railway%2Bmerger%2Bmao.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WxhtwHJw75k/Vq5zijwww8I/AAAAAAAAAVk/zOnQ7WlHdQ4/s320/railway%2Bmerger%2Bmao.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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Note: no mention of a Kiev-Odessa railway... Help?</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-33720221702724803762015-12-14T00:51:00.001-08:002015-12-17T12:10:48.191-08:00Collecting Russian postmarks: choose wisely!I never tire of telling this story because it demonstrates how absolutely clueless I was when I first became interested in Russian philately: I walked into a philatelic bookstore in London and asked for a book on "all Russian postmarks"...<br />
<br />
Of course no such book existed or will ever exist, as there are just too many Russian postmarks to collect. So if you are interested in Russian postmarks, which is a natural interest to develop after collecting stamps, what should you do?<br />
Well, first you should decide if you want to break new ground or whether you want to collect something that has already been explored previously. If the latter, then there are not that many areas to choose from, as the vast majority of Russian postmarks is still waiting for a good handbook. There's good literature on St.Petersburg, Transcaucasia, Siberia and the Baltic region, while Moscow has an incomplete book that covers some useful ground. Beyond that, literature is either spotty, outdated or absent. If you're not thinking about geographical areas but about types of postmarks, then railway postmarks and ship postmarks have great books devoted to them and not much else does...<br />
<br />
Next you should think very carefully about the availability of material and how much you're willing to spend. For example, the postmarks of Russian offices in China can be collected, but be prepared to pay very steep prices for everything except the most common postmarks. Just trawling through eBay listings for a few weeks should give you a very good idea of what kind of material is available and how much you may have to spend. I will tell you right now that most material you will see is either from the Baltic region, Poland, St.Petersburg, Moscow or some areas in Ukraine. Other regions you will see infrequently, so if you're unwilling to go weeks without finding anything new for your collection, be prepared!<br />
For example, say you've become interested in Pskov province and are thinking about collecting the postmarks of the Imperial period. Check out eBay and you will find a few postmarks from the city of Pskov itself and not much else...So don't make your chosen area too small.<br />
<br />
Siberia is another great example. There's a wonderful handbook about its postmarks available and it's HUGE, right? But when you start checking out eBay you will quickly find a few Vladivostok postmarks and everything after that becomes hard work...Plus, Siberia probably had thousands of postmarks, so it's a lot to collect.<br />
<br />
With all that in mind, here are a few suggestions for feasible collecting subjects:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Kiev or Odessa. Big cities that generated a lot of mail (Odessa more than Kiev) and they had a lot of postmarks. I'm not aware of any literature on either city in English, but I believe there's a book about Odessa in Russian which should help.</li>
<li>The Caucasian resort towns: Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk, Mineralnie Vody and the like. They had tourists visiting them and that generated mail.</li>
<li>The big southern provinces of Terek, Kuban and Don.</li>
<li>Town Post postmarks. These are easy to find from the big cities and very scarce for anywhere else, which makes them fun.</li>
</ol>
Good luck!Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-7131546058198797592015-12-08T00:03:00.000-08:002015-12-08T00:03:11.254-08:00Azerbaijan's 1992 mystery issueFew stamp issues of Azerbaijan confuse me as much as the Other Overprints. Let me explain: one of the first stamp issues of independent Azerbaijan was a set of 5 surcharges on an unissued 15k stamp. The offending text of the stamp was obliterated by bars consisting of horizontal lines. However, the same set of surcharges was also available in the stamp trade with solid bars.<br />
Azermarka, the Azeri philatelic bureau, isn't always helpful when it comes to these early issues, and Azermarka publications just ignore these "solid bar" surcharges altogether. That seems unwise, as they were accepted for postage in Azerbaijan itself, as we know thanks to Trevor Pateman:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hKWeMRQBnU/VmaNYgET3uI/AAAAAAAAAU0/tPwmnVdeFYg/s1600/first%2Boverprints%2Bunissued%2Btype.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hKWeMRQBnU/VmaNYgET3uI/AAAAAAAAAU0/tPwmnVdeFYg/s320/first%2Boverprints%2Bunissued%2Btype.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Two stamps of the "solid bar" issue on cover from Baku to England. Sure, this is a dealer-inspired cover, and I believe Trevor even supplied the stamps and the envelope but a.) the stamps were accepted and b.) the letter went through the mail and reached its destination. QED. Note that this cover in no way proves that these stamps were available in Azerbaijan itself.</div>
Trevor performed similar useful duties when it comes to those odd early imperforates:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ee2w-RUJB7w/VmaOI3TkvlI/AAAAAAAAAU8/Q4MfS2LvGcw/s1600/resulzadeh%2Bimperf%2Bcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ee2w-RUJB7w/VmaOI3TkvlI/AAAAAAAAAU8/Q4MfS2LvGcw/s320/resulzadeh%2Bimperf%2Bcover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Same caveats but same conclusion.<br />
<br />
Coming back to the "solid bars" issue, I've found it to be an order of magnitude more scarce than the regular issue. The regular issue I have in sheets, for the solid bar issue, blocks of 4 is the best I can do and I'm quite pleased with those. I wonder if after so long, we'll ever find out the story behind these stamps...Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-33500936554902064242015-12-06T22:11:00.001-08:002015-12-12T17:54:43.510-08:00Fake covers of the Nikolaevsk-on-Amur issueIn the past I have made no secret of my disdain for the so-called Nikolaevsk-on-Amur issue. Briefly, I believe the issue to have been concocted by stamp speculators, and never to have seen use in NNA itself. "Remainders" of the issue (i.e. all of it) were sold in Vladivostok as late as 1922.<br />
Every now and then a faked cover of this issue appears at auction. There was a prize specimen in the 1983 Rand auction, and I've seen one at Delcampe as well. Recently I was able to add one to my reference collection for about $50, which seems about right for a curio like this. Here it is:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B-3UuzGW5aA/VmUhmyY-NUI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/e4gPINn10uM/s1600/fake%2Bcover%2Bfront.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B-3UuzGW5aA/VmUhmyY-NUI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/e4gPINn10uM/s320/fake%2Bcover%2Bfront.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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You can write a whole list of things that are wrong with this cover from the front alone. Let's see:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Wrong rate</li>
<li>Nikolaevsk postmark in Soviet spelling (a backdated Soviet postmark perhaps?)</li>
<li>Vladivostok "g" used as arrival marking on an unregistered letter</li>
<li>Address written in Soviet spelling as well</li>
<li>And of course, the whole cover is far too clean for this period.</li>
</ul>
It gets even better when you see the reverse:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1Roi24xcK88/VmUiMGsiKxI/AAAAAAAAAUY/BHC_IVmhE4c/s1600/fake%2Bcover%2Breverse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1Roi24xcK88/VmUiMGsiKxI/AAAAAAAAAUY/BHC_IVmhE4c/s320/fake%2Bcover%2Breverse.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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A ship postmark from a very scarce line used as a transit marking? Except this particular postmark has never been seen on anything except these fake covers...</div>
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I'll add that the Vladivostok "g" postmark was used extensively for backdated covers. Judging from its state of wear, these strikes are from 1923 or later: in 1921 this postmark looked a lot cleaner.</div>
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As desperately poor as these faked covers are (and there are at least 3 of them in existence), they're masterpieces compared to this nonsense:</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZLuzKfyCKb0/VmUiz1CELFI/AAAAAAAAAUg/WOfN2WSNpZA/s1600/NNA%2Bpostcard%2B15k%2Bon%2B20k.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZLuzKfyCKb0/VmUiz1CELFI/AAAAAAAAAUg/WOfN2WSNpZA/s320/NNA%2Bpostcard%2B15k%2Bon%2B20k.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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which was offered by Gaertner a few years ago. How wrong can you get?</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">©</span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: "open sans" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> Ivo Steijn, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ivo Steijn with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.</span></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-18443954893280356332015-11-06T16:53:00.000-08:002015-11-07T17:46:59.762-08:00A complicated Crimean coverI find the Civil War postal history of the Crimea fascinating. All three years (1918, 1919 and 1920) offer their own challenges to the collector, but it is 1920 that's probably the most challenging because material is so scarce. We know the final Wrangel administration raised the postal rates drastically, to 5R, with 5R for registration, and thanks to Pavel "Duck" Pavlov, we finally have complete information on these final White rates and know they were effective May 1st, 1920 to October 9th at the latest.<br />
Which brings me to this cover, a registered letter sent from Evpatoriya on August 7, 1920 to Sevastopol' where it arrived on August 11. Franked at 10R (correct rate) and with impeccable (though sadly lightly struck) postmark of Evpatoriya and Sevastopol', it looks genuine, and has a censor marking on the back as well, that you typically see on Crimean covers of this period.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYjKnL3V7iA/Vj1CMlhm-rI/AAAAAAAAAT4/YcWMDbyjBhQ/s1600/Front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYjKnL3V7iA/Vj1CMlhm-rI/AAAAAAAAAT4/YcWMDbyjBhQ/s320/Front.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yTZKecMHM3A/Vj1CMsWidvI/AAAAAAAAAT8/fGrEVs8Vlsc/s1600/Back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yTZKecMHM3A/Vj1CMsWidvI/AAAAAAAAAT8/fGrEVs8Vlsc/s320/Back.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Of course, the franking raises eyebrows. One perforated and one unperforated stamp? Too good to be true? But I can't fault the cover...</div>
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It was Pavel Pavlov who put the pieces together. First, note that the cover is addressed to Aleksandr Nikolaevich Sredinsky, and the name Sredinsky should ring all kinds of bells. He was the evil genius behind the "Russian Refugee Post" nonsense as well as the final Crimean "issue", the 100R/1k surcharge that was prepared but never issued (but marketed vigorously by S.). I will not reveal his findings here, since they are so interesting they deserve a long article of their own, but these stamps were not distributed to Evpatoriya at all. The only person who could have access to them was Sredinsky. So it looks like this cover was sent by Sredinsky or one of his minions. Philatelically inspired then, but still legitimate.</div>
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I don't know of any other frankings like that, but feel free to surprise me!</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">©</span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> Ivo Steijn, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ivo Steijn with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.</span></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-83873513852244049002015-10-16T20:26:00.000-07:002015-10-16T20:26:41.117-07:00Transient province: Odessa GuberniyaThese days, Wikipedia is a very useful reference for something that used to be almost impossible to keep track of: changes in the provinces of Russia/USSR. There was a lot of restless tinkering with <i>guberniya</i> borders during the Imperial period but it wasn't until the 1920s that large-scale change became common, making it hard to keep track of what province any particular city might be in.<br />
Odessa guberniya is a great example. There was no such animal in the Imperial period, Odessa being in Kherson guberniya, but in 1920, Odessa guberniya was created during the split of Kherson guberniya (the other bit becoming Nikolaev guberniya). It lasted until 1925 when all guberniyas were abolished and the map of the Ukrainian SSR was redrawn, in <i>okruhs</i> this time, so Odessa guberniya became Odessa okruh. That lasted until 1930 when the okruhs were abolished and everything went to <i>oblasts,</i> so we got Odessa oblast'.<br />
<br />
Attentive postmark collectors can actually track this process in postmarks, although the postmarks did sometimes lag after the reorganizations. The card below shows a nice bilingual postmark from the Odessa guberniya period, from a place called Bilyaevka. I'm sure there are lots more but I rarely see them.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--JxJHqMLezo/ViG_r-X4C3I/AAAAAAAAATg/7rxklJjxL1A/s1600/Bilyaevka%2BOdessa%2Bguberniya%2B1925.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--JxJHqMLezo/ViG_r-X4C3I/AAAAAAAAATg/7rxklJjxL1A/s320/Bilyaevka%2BOdessa%2Bguberniya%2B1925.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-83119496174445136252015-10-05T00:08:00.001-07:002015-10-05T17:24:18.918-07:00Unpleasant surprises while collecting postmarks...Today I celebrated a milestone in my decades-old pursuit of Crimean postmarks: I now have 250 Imperial-period (excluding prestamp) postmarks on file, and 252 Soviet-period (up to 1945) postmarks. And I still find new postmarks almost every week, and certainly every month.<br />
To give you some idea of how incomplete this little database must be: I am aware of 110 post offices (of various classes, excluding town post sub-offices) that were active during the Imperial period. I have recorded postmarks of 53 of them. The Soviet period is even worse. There's a 1937 listing by Andrew Cronin that lists 273 offices, of which I've seen 75. Clearly, I have a lot more collecting to do!<br />
However, every now and then I find out the job is even bigger than I thought.<br />
Let's start with multiple serial letters. It's a well-known phenomenon that you can have multiple postmarks with the same serial letter for a given location. The later-Imperial double-circle postmarks are often found in a "large" and "small" version sharing the same serial letter, and of course, postmarks had to be replaced sometimes too. Even so, some places on the Crimea drive me nuts. Baidary is a good example. I have 4 double-circle postmarks in my files. ALL FOUR WITH SERIAL "a"! I mean, come on! If that multiplicity is typical, then I'll be collecting postmarks until I die.<br />
In the Soviet period, the 1930s can be a little like that too. Most postmarks seem to exist in two versions. The older version (early 1930s) has (placename) KRYM in the top half in Cyrillic and (placename) in the bottom half in Extended Latin. The later version has KRYM (or rather, QRbM) in the bottom half as well. So for any given serial letter you are likely to find two postmarks.<br />
But Gurzuf added insult to injury!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G87WZqVCQ9A/VhHQirF_6yI/AAAAAAAAASo/pmWSVpFH2Kk/s1600/GURZUF%2B3%2Bv%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G87WZqVCQ9A/VhHQirF_6yI/AAAAAAAAASo/pmWSVpFH2Kk/s320/GURZUF%2B3%2Bv%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W_DfXYuJP5M/VhHQio5vJPI/AAAAAAAAASk/1OPxJ9l6ywA/s1600/GURZUF%2B3%2Bv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W_DfXYuJP5M/VhHQio5vJPI/AAAAAAAAASk/1OPxJ9l6ywA/s320/GURZUF%2B3%2Bv.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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FINE! Two postmarks with serial "v", both in the older type. And yes, I am aware the bottom of the two has the dodgy dots that denote NKVD censorship, but still!</div>
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Now let's talk about city post sub-offices. Even during the Imperial period these just pop up like odd surprises. On the Crimea, Sevastopol', Simferopol' and Feodosiya certainly had them, because I have the postmarks, but were there any others? Dunno!</div>
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The Soviet period is even worse. Take a place like Saki, a small town on he Southwestern coast. Why on earth did Saki, of all places, have this:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fQ2LqJpGQGE/VhIhYXiW5MI/AAAAAAAAATA/ELf3zv6fS9U/s1600/SAKIGOR2%2B4%2B-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fQ2LqJpGQGE/VhIhYXiW5MI/AAAAAAAAATA/ELf3zv6fS9U/s320/SAKIGOR2%2B4%2B-.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
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SECOND town sub-office, no less! And then this pops up from Feodosiya:</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uux6Gkb6ij0/VhIhkDSyWLI/AAAAAAAAATI/hbY0390EMKI/s1600/FEODOSIYAGOR3%2B3%2B%2527-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uux6Gkb6ij0/VhIhkDSyWLI/AAAAAAAAATI/hbY0390EMKI/s320/FEODOSIYAGOR3%2B3%2B%2527-.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
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Very nice, and now I know what "gorodskoe" looks like in Crimean Tatar, but damn....</div>
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I'm going to be collecting these postmarks until I die, and I'd better be long-lived!</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972149067131327755.post-22195465038004596792015-08-22T12:17:00.001-07:002015-08-22T12:17:22.223-07:00Modern CTO stamps: not stamps at all?<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes a simple used stamp can raise a lot of questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stamp in question is actually a souvenir sheet: Scott 5879,
issued for the Stamp World London exhibition in 1990. It’s obviously
cancelled-to-order (CTO), with the impossibly crisp postmark reading simply
MOSKVA – POCHTAMT that is never seen on any normal piece of mail and probably
isn’t a real postmark to begin with.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-947BOcJh3HA/VdjKap6ruAI/AAAAAAAAASE/Qn6pRDWhRsw/s1600/IMG_0008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-947BOcJh3HA/VdjKap6ruAI/AAAAAAAAASE/Qn6pRDWhRsw/s320/IMG_0008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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CTO stamps have been around for over a century, and for
almost a century in Russia, with CTO stamps making an appearance in the early
1920s. Originally, existing postmarks were used to cancel stamps in sheets, but
around 1930 we see special postmarks pressed into service, often (but not
always) inscribed “D.K.” which is presumed to stand for “For collectors”.
However, these are cancelling devices applied to sheets of the same stamps that
were available in post office. In other words, they were valid postage stamps,
cancelled to order after their printing was finished.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The souvenir sheet shown here betrays a quite different process.
It’s a funny feature of printing processes that silver and gold inks have to be
printed last, and this sheet has both silver and gold design elements. A quick look through a magnifying glass shows that these silver and gold
elements are <i>on top of the
MOSKVA-POCHTAMT postmark</i>. In other words, the “postmark” was printed onto
the stamps before the stamps were even finished. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So what are these things? They’re not postage stamps that
have been cancelled to order. They’re a kind of stamp facsimile, except instead
of the word “facsimile” to distinguish them from real stamps they have this
bogus “postmark”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A case could be made that “CTO stamps” produced in this fashion
are not postage stamps at all and should not be listed in self-respecting stamp
catalogs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You may think this is a subtle distinction, but mint sheets that are postmarked after their printing is finished were, at least for a brief time, valid postage stamps. These modern CTO things were <b>never </b>valid stamps.</div>
Dr.Ivohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08909156720024759785noreply@blogger.com0