Hidden gems of the Civil War

The 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.
However, the stamps 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...

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.

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.

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.

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!