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Tuesday 2 June 2015

Armenia Fiscal Stamps: A Variety Not Listed in Zakiyan


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The fiscal stamps on this little document have been Armenianised three times over.

First, the Imperial Russian 75 kopeck General Fiscal stamps were perforated in Cyrillic with the initials " E.K.P" standing for the Yerevan Chancellery (or Exchequer) Court. Zakiyan in his 2003 book dates these Perfins to September 1919, so quite early in the Dashnak Armenian period. On the 75 kopeck, the Perfin is listed as #8.

Then the Dashnak fiscals were Sovietised with a lithographic overprint comprising a Coat of Arms (over the Imperial Arms) and a new "1 rf" value in Armenian script. This would be Zakiyan's # 16 but for the fact that the stamp has the E.K.P perfin - Zakiyan does not list the overprint on this stamp, though it makes sense as a way of using up old Dashnak stamps. Zakiyan dates the lithographic overprints to September 1922.

Finally, the stamps have been revalued in Manuscript violet ink to "75 000", written in the bottom tab. Zakiyan dates these manuscript revaluations to May 1923 and this stamp would be his # 23 but for the Perfin variety, The revaluation handwriting on my document matches that on a fine document illustrated by Zakiyan at page 68 of his Fiscal section and since I have seen the same handwriting on other documents I conclude that only a few clerks were involved in the laborious work of writing these revaluations onto sheets of stamps prior to use. In general, the stamps were uprated in sheets before being broken up for use on documents, 

My document appears to date from July 1923 with date endorsements at top centre and in the very bottom line.



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