A cover from Bessarabia’s “mystery period”

A quick poll will probably reveal that most readers know which 5 countries broke away from the Russian Empire (more-or-less) permanently after the Revolution: Poland, Finland and the 3 Baltic states. The fact that Bessarabia guberniya was quietly occupied and annexed by Romania in 1918 is less well known and the very few attempts at exploring what that meant in philatelic terms have all been within the pages of Yamshchik/The-Post-Rider. The political timeline was as follows (dates in New Style):

15 December 1917: “National Council” in Kishinev proclaims Moldavian People’s Republic, intended to be in a federative union with Russia

6 January 1918: military aid is requested from Romania

23 January 1918: Romanian units move into Bessarabia, occupying the following cities:

            24 January: Cahul

            25 January: Bolgrad

            26 January: Kishinev

            27 January: Reni

            3 February: Ismail

            5 February: Bendery

            7 February: Khilia

18 February 1918: total independence is declared

9 April 1918: Bessarabia is united with Romania

1 July 1918: Romanian postal service is established in Bessarabia

Clearly, the period of interest is from roughly 15 December 1917 to 1 July 1918: a period of transition, which is always interesting philatelically.

Sadly, examples of mail from this period are extremely scarce, and apart from two postcards described by Epstein (2005, 2007) I don’t know of any examples illustrated in the literature. So it’s a pleasure to add one more example to that short list. The cover illustrated here was sent registered from Bolgrad (17 April 1918) to Kishinev (20 April 1918). Franked with Russian Arms stamps for 50k, it supports Epstein’s conjecture that Moldavia-as-part-of-Romania was using the Ukrainian postal rates of 15 January 1918 (or something that looked just like it): 25k postage and 25k registration, see Ivakhno (1991) for details.

It’s an interesting example of Russian stamps being used to frank Ukrainian postal rates in what was by then part of Romania…

References

Epstein, Alexander: “An item from Bessarabia in the period of troubles”. Yamshchik/The Post-Rider 56, June 2005, pp.72-73.

Epstein, Alexander: “One more item of mail from Bessarabia in 1918”. Yamshchik/The Post-Rider 60, September 2007, pp.47-48.

Grecu, Dan: “The beginnings of the Romanian posts in Bessarabia in 1918”. Yamshchik/The Post-Rider 45, November 1999, pp.62-66.

Ivakhno, Aleksandr: “Pochtovye tarify Ukrainy 1918-1920gg”. Ukrainskaya i Rossiiskaya Filateliya 1, 1991, pp.7-13.

In praise of the obscure and unpopular

For literally decades, Russia was the only thing I collected. Siberia, Crimea, Georgia, prestamp, lots of other things, all within the vast field of Russian philately. But as we all know, the 21st century saw an unprecedented explosion in the prices of most Russian material.
My good friend Robert Taylor has for many years collected Russian/Soviet postal history, but he also collects Nicaragua. After seeing the fun he has with that, I decided to take a Latin American philatelic mistress as well, and after lots of research settled on Paraguay. Post-WW2 Paraguay is pretty icky. Not only is there the political unpleasantness of the Stroessner regime, the philatelic pandering was blatant and off-putting. I mean, Paraguay issued "Europa" stamps!
19th century Paraguay has other problems. Prior to 1870 the country was essentially destroyed completely and started over from scratch. The first few issues are all but impossible to find on cover and it's not until the late 1880s that Paraguayan covers become obtainable. So after some thought I decided to pick the 1900-1945 period as my playing field.
It was a revelation! If I have more than 2 competitors for any Paraguayan eBay lot I am shocked! I don't know of any other serious Paraguay collectors in the USA, and even worldwide they seem to be thin on the ground. As a result, material - even rare or unique material - is CHEAP! I've bought absolutely unique items for a few hundred dollars at most. Proofs and essays, which I've always liked, are common for some issues and just scarce enough for others to make it interesting. And postal history seems to be a largely unexplored field. What more can any collector want?

Even in the Russian field there are such lovely little playgrounds. Post-Soviet material (say, up to 1995) is invariably interesting, and quite scarce from some countries (I'm looking at you, Georgia), although you do have to educate yourself to be able to spot the numerous forgeries and fantasy products. hey, I'm a Russian Civil War philatelic veteran, that sort of thing doesn't scare me!

Think about it. Tired of being outbid? Go weird!

Presentation card with color proofs for the second Paraguay 1903 definitive issue

Collecting postmarks

Collecting postmarks is an odd little sub-hobby of postal history. In a way, it ignores almost all the interesting bits about postal history (routes, rates, mail types, etc.) and focuses on the markings that are only of indirect interest.
That said, it's a lot of fun! I'd argue that it's often the most natural expansion of a stamp collection, to move into collecting the postmarks on the stamps. Since postmarks on loose stamps can be frustrating, it's often easier and more rewarding to collect postmarks on complete items of mail.
Oversimplifying recklessly, I think you can collect postmarks in four ways: by location, period, type or usage. Location and period are fairly self-explanatory while "type" can be as simple as "oval" or as complicated as "locally produced nonstandard datestamps of the late Imperial Russian period" (and if you collect the latter then good luck - they're fascinating and very, very scarce). "Usage" is the least popular category and includes perfectly boring-looking postmarks used by seasonal post offices. It's often an indirect way to define "type".

As I may have mentioned once or twice, I collect postmarks from the Crimea, pre-stamp to 1945. The late Imperial (1903-1917) and early Soviet (1923-1939) periods are by far the most interesting to me. In the late Imperial period, three classes of Crimean postmarks are a particular headache to find.

Railways post offices include the two Zh.D.P.O.-class offices of Sevastopol' (common) and Kerch' (rare); three stantsiyas which were converted to ordinary P.O.s fairly soon after their opening (Nikita, Sarabuz and Sem' Kolodezei - I've only seen the latter); and regular stantsiya offices. I had never seen a Crimean stantsiya postmark until fairly recently, when a Soviet late usage of the Imperial postmark of Akmanai found its way into my collection.

Sem' Kolodezei as a P.O.

The second class of "difficult" postmarks are the seasonals. Livadiya is the oldest and the most common.Six new seasonal offices were opened in 1915: Isary, Koktebel', Moinak, Otuzskiya Dachi, Sara-Kurort and Chokrak, of which Sara-Kurort was converted to a regular P.O. in 1916. The last to be added was Sudakskiya Dachi in 1917. Sadly, Evpatoriiskiya Dachi, despite its summer-y name, was not a seasonal office.

Otuzskiya Dachi Seasonal office

The final class of problem cases are the "Volostnoe Pravlenie" offices. There were 9 of them, of which 6 were converted to P.O.s in 1916 I have yet to see a postmark of any of them...

Some thoughts about the Schlegel "Russia" sale

Schlegel is an auction house in Berlin that recently had a wonderful Russia sale: all postal history, from all periods.
There was some wonderful stuff in there, and I'm very pleased I got the one lot I bid on. Other lots were nice but overpriced. For example, there were half a dozen Imperial international money orders from Karasubazar, Crimea. Very unusual, but at 65 Euros a pop they'd have been around $125 each by the time they'd reached me and that was just too much. They didn't sell.
TPO collectors had a lot of fun with this sale too, a s the TPO marks were split over many smaller lots. That enabled the informed buyers to cherry-pick, and as a result the less attractive lots remained unsold.
In general, the bidders were obviously an informed lot. Azerbaijan had lots of average covers, many of which remained unsold, but for the good items there was spirited bidding, so bidders obviously knew what to look for.

In all, I think about two-thirds of the lots remained unsold. I hope this result won't discourage further sales like this!

It is what it says it is

Yes, the title of this blog is an accurate prediction of what I "plan" on posting here. Randomly. Philatelically. I fully blame Trevor Pateman for this, since his philately blog is always a pleasure to read.
Most likely, those random acts of blogging will be around my own collecting interests. So what are those collecting interests these days, I don't hear you ask?

• Siberia and the Russian Far East during the Civil War. Mostly postal history, and only rarely, since I rarely find anything that tells me something interesting anymore;

• Soviet Georgia: the handstamped surcharges on the first definitives;

• Crimea: postmarks (all periods up to 1945) and postal history (especially Civil War);

• Paraguay 1900-1945, stamps and postal history;

• Netherlands and colonies: "Guilder" high values, stamps and postal use, as well as proofs;

• Guyana 1981-1989, the "Flower" definitives and their (many) overprints;

• Prestamp international mail, mostly to and from Russia, but also through Berg and the Kingdom of Westphalia, 1806-1813.

Yes, it's an odd list! These days I just refuse to pigeonhole myself - it just complicates things.

I hope you, my entirely theoretical reader, will find something of interest here.