Russia 1920 Stamp Revaluations - the example of Spassk

In Spring 1920, the Soviet People's Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs (Sovnarkompochtel) told the post offices under its control to revalue all their kopeck stamps denominated between 1 and 20 kopecks into equivalent rouble stamps: in other words, a one hundred times revaluation. This was a cheap and efficient way of conserving stamps at a time of inflation by making better use of low value stamps - in fact, 100 times better use!

Most post offices revalued their stamps "silently" - there is nothing to show the stamps are now rouble stamps. A few post offices produced cachets to apply to Money Transfer forms and Parcel Cards indicating that the stamps had been revalued. Some post offices overprinted their kopeck stamps with something - either a "p" or a "pyb" - to indicate that these were now rouble value stamps.

All of this was done without any philatelic inspiration or manipulation, which is a main reason why for most surcharged revaluations mint copies are unknown or virtually unknown - a fact which forgers have generally ignored. Only in a few cases were mint remainder stocks returned at a later date to Moscow and passed to the Soviet Philatelic Association. What was passed to the SPhA in massive quantities were bundles of used Money Transfer Forms and Parcel Cards on which most of the revalued stamps had been used. Of course, maybe ninety nine percent of formulars in the bundles had no Postmaster Provisional overprints, so that a very large job of sorting out had to be done.But despite the labour-intensive work, it was from these bundles from the archives that the SPhA made early catalogue listings of which post offices had produced what surcharges.Very few Postmaster Provisionals were used on letters or postcards since in 1920 these could be sent free, unless Registered or overweight.

Many Postmaster Provisional overprints appear to have been used by a single post office but some were distributed from a main office to local or dependent offices. This was true in the case of Spassk in Kazan guberniya, where maybe a dozen offices made use of the stamps produced in the Spassk office. The images below show my holding for these Provisionals - and the images probably indicate that collecting such things is not for the faint-hearted or for those with a desire for the beautiful. As usual, Click on the Images to magnify them.

Russia 1920 - 21 Postmaster Provisionals on Mail Going Abroad

My guess is that over 90% of the 1920 - 21 Postmaster Provisionals - the "pyb" and "p" handstamped locally on Imperial Arms kopeck value stamps - were used on Money Transfer Forms and Parcel Cards, especially the latter. Red Army soldiers at this time were sending home very big parcels of Loot from areas recently taken by the Red Armies and lots of stamps were needed on the parcel cards. A 20 kopeck stamp overprinted "pyb" had twice the value of the highest value Imperial stamp, the 10 rouble. And for part of the period, ordinary letters and postcards were carried Free for civilians and soldiers alike.

Occasionally, it is possible to find the Provisionals on cards and letters. Small and sleepy Kustanai in Turgai became an important Red Army base (it is now in Kazakhstan) and the soldiers made extensive use of its locally overprinted stamps on their parcels home. But here, very unusually, is a Registered letter from Kustanai to Germany:

Click on Image to Magnify

This letter was posted at Kustanai on 26 6 20, the first week in which mail services to foreign countries resumed. It transited through Petgrograd on 6th and 7th July, with no obvious signs of censorship, and arrived in Magdeburg on 27 July 1920 - so just a month in transit. Usefully, the MAGDEBURG cancel ties both groups of stamps to the cover.

The only puzzle is the franking. The Tariff of 6th June 1920 priced a Registered letter going abroad at 10 roubles. But here we have a 100 rouble franking, far too much to be accounted for by weight steps. One obvious possibility is that Red Army Kustanai was working on a local currency or Tariff which converted the 10 roubles of the National tariff to 100 roubles locally. There is nothing about the cover, which appears to be from husband to wife, to suggest that it is philatelic.

More Postmaster Provisional overprints were made in 1921, the better known ones include those of Minsk.

The following two covers sent from BORISOV MINSK in September 1921 and addressed in different handwritings to the Jewish Daily Forward, a widely-read socialist newspaper published in Yiddish in New York, are both franked with 8 x 2 kopeck stamps revalued by the large Minsk seal applied (normally) over blocks of 4 and converting each stamp to a 250 rouble stamp. They are thus franked at 2000 roubles which is correct for registered letters abroad by the National Tariff of 25 August 1921. But one cover, sent on 2 September, has stamps revalued with a seal in violet ink. The second, posted on 12 September has stamps showing a black seal. Both covers transited through Moscow and picked up a Three Triangle Censor cachet there, and both covers have New York Registry Division receivers which helpfully are over the stamps.

Click on Images to Magnify

  

Sovdepia: More About Mail Abroad in 1920

"Sovdepia" was a pejorative term used by the Whites to designate areas of former Imperial RussIA controlled by SOViets of Workers' and Peasants' DEPuties. But it's quite a useful term since it is a bit more accurate than "areas controlled by the Bolsheviks" which overlooks that there were - for short periods - anti-White and pro-Soviet areas controlled by other factions, notably the Left SRs.

Anyway, Sovdepia was without postal connections to foreign countries from the beginning of 1919 until mid-1920. This is a really remarkable fact - very rarely in modern history has a country totally lost mail links to other countries.

When mail services to abroad resumed in June 1920, then according to the Tariff of 7 June 1920 ordinary letters could be sent Free and Registered letters were charged at 10 roubles. A new Tariff of 30 September 1920 abolished all the remaining Free post services, and set a charge of 5 roubles for Ordinary letters sent abroad and 10 roubles for Registered.

With the final defeat of  Red forces in the second half of 1919, Latvia successfully asserted its Independence, though the Moscow government did not formally recognise Latvian independence until August 1920. Nonetheless, in the intervening period Latvia had become a Foreign Destination as far as mail was concerned. This is illustrated by the fact that the cover below sent from MOSCOW 25 6 20 to WAINODE 31 7 20 has a Registration label intended for foreign mail, as well as by the fact that it is franked at the Foreign Registered rate of 10 roubles ( 2 x 5 kop x 100 = 10 roubles) and not the Domestic Registered rate of 7 roubles:

The cover was top-opened by the recipient but was clearly opened through the back flap by the Moscow censor, as can be seen below. Note also that the cancellation is a new Latvian independence period device (Hofmann type 1525.1):

The next cover is particularly interesting because it shows the 10 rouble Tariff being applied on mail from another part of Sovdepia - Ukraine. In this case, the  2 x 10 Shahiv stamps have been correctly treated as equivalent  to 5 kopeck stamps and then revalued x 100 to yield a 10 rouble franking. That this letter is sent from UMAN 23 9 20 when under Soviet control is confirmed by the fact that it was routed through PETROGRAD 4 X 20 and 6 10 20 before arriving in RIGA LATWIJA 6 11 20 - again, this is a new post-Independence Latvian canceller:

The final cover I illustrate shows that the 10 rouble Registered foreign Tariff was still in place in April 1921.

This cover originated in PSKOV 29 4 21 [note the new Soviet cancel - the old Pskov cancel probably went missing at the time of the retreat of the [White] North West Army from Pskov] and was sent to MOSKVA 3 5 21 for censorship and onward transmission, reaching MAS-SALAZA LATWIJA 12 5 21. The 10 rouble Tariff is met with a 7 rouble perforated stamp used at face and a 3 kopeck perforated stamp revalued x 100:  

For the Tariffs, I have used Alexander Epstein's work as published in the Journal of Classical Russian Philately, 2, 1998, page 29.

Mail abroad in 1920 is very scarce - maybe one should say "Rare" - and the first half of 1921 is not much better! The trio above came from three different sources: the Robert Taylor collection (Moscow cover), a recent Christoph Gärtner Auction (Uman cover) and the John Whiteside collection (Pskov cover|).

Added 3 July 2013: Vasilis Opsimos kindly sent me scans of this very interesting cover which started out from PODOLSK MOCK on 23 2 [21], arrived in Moscow 29 II 21 [machine cancel on reverse] but held there at least until 16 4 21 when a Moscow three triangle censor mark was applied. It was then sent to Riga, where as an unfranked item it attracted Postage Due [ Peemaksat] - Latvian Postage Due marks are quite common at this period.

The really interesting thing about this cover, as Vasilis points out to me, is that it addressed to travel via the "Department of Diplomatic Couriers" in Moscow [ see third line of address beginning "Otdel ..."]. This may explain why it started out as a Free Frank item [ unless it was Paid in Cash and the fact noted on the missing back flap]. Perhaps it was delayed in Moscow because the "Department of Diplomatic Couriers" no longer functioned or would not handle this item. Who Knows?

Added 14 July 2013: Alexander Epstein kindly sent me the scans below. They show an unstamped letter addressed in both Estonian and Russian at the top and addressed to Tartu. On the back is a Tallinn transit roller cancel 3 VIII 20 and a Tartu receiver. On the front is an Estonian censor triangle and a Postage Due cachet. This cover is most probably from Russia, sent during the period when ordinary letters abroad were Free, but according to Epstein would have been sent with Russian diplomatic mail to Tallinn rather than through the Russian post office - there are no Russian markings at all. Epstein says that the Postage Due raised is the actual cost of an ordinary letter rather than twice the cost, as would be usual for Postage Due. This suggests that the letter was put into the Estonian mail stream in Tallinn as part of an agreed procedure for handling Russian mail. Of course, this is a rare item.

1920 Tomsk Postmaster Provisionals

At the top. Money Transfer Form used at Tomsk 8 10 20, single franking with a forgery of the k 20 k overprint used as a Postmaster Provisional and revalued to 20 roubles (2% of the sum transferred)

At the bottom. Parcel Card used at Nizhne-Chulimskoe Tomsk 23 9 20, charged at 78 roubles. On the reverse, three Imperial Arms kopeck stamps revalued from 18 kopecks to 18 roubles; on the front, 3 invalidated Romanov 20 / 14 kop stamps pressed into use as Postmaster Provisionals and revalued to 3 x 20 roubles, thus exactly completing the 78 rouble charge.

Click on the image to see it more clearly; click on the magnifier on your screen to enlarge it.

1920 Revaluations: An Interesting Ukrainian Item

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Added February 2020: Most of my Ukraine-related Blog posts are now available in full colour book form. To find out more follow the link:

http://www.armeniazemstvo.com/2020/02/just-published-trevor-pateman.html

RSFSR 1920 Revaluations: a new Provisional?

I spent three hours today online following Cherrystone's sale of the AURORA collection of RSFSR material. I bid for two items and bought one. For the rest I was a spectator, though I was very tempted by Lot 2189 when I saw it selling so cheaply ...

Lot 2024 which you can find illustrated at www.cherrystoneauctions.com is a 1920 Parcel Card (without insured value) sent from Nizhne-Chulylmskoe in Tomsk Guberniya to Bogorodosk Moscow Guberniya - so this is Soviet Tomsk rather than White Tomsk.

The 78 rouble charges correspond exactly to the kopeck value stamps affixed, all revalued 100 times. There is a 1 kop, a 2 kop, a 15 kop - and three 20 / 14 kop Romanovs (Catherine).

Well, I was attracted by the fact that this is a very late use of Romanovs, and also revalued like ordinary kopeck stamps. (I am making a collection of 1920 revalued uses).

It then occurred to me (after I had bought it) that not only is 23 September 1920 a very late date for use of Romanovs, but that actually Romanov stamps had been invalidated earlier in the year at the same time as ordinary kopeck stamps were revalued upwards x 100.

Now, I thought, it would be a bold counter clerk who would use invalidated and politically suspect stamps, three of them, on the front of a card going to Moscow. Maybe he was given some authorisation to use these stamps.

The I had another thought: Tomsk Guberniya. It is from Tomsk that we get the most famous of the 1920 Postmaster Provisionals: the k.20 k. / 14 kopeck (regular stamp not Romanov) which appears to be a postal forgery pressed into service in 1920 presumably because of stamp shortages. I have a copy used in October 1920 as a single franking on a Money Transfer Form, the stamp revalued from 20 kopecks to 20 roubles to pay the 2% due on a transfer of 1000 roubles.

And then I began to wonder: Did the (head ) Postmaster at Tomsk tell the postmasters of other offices under his administration - or at least the postmaster in charge of Nizhne-Chulymskoe - that because of the stamp shortages they faced, they could use any stamps they had in stock - including invalidated Romanovs?

If anything like that is the case, then my late use Romanovs are not only revalued but also Postmaster Provisionals. In which case, I may have not spent far too much money on this item after all :)