Armenia First Yessayan Used Without Overprints

Click on Image to Magnify

The series of Armenian stamps known as "First Yessayan" were only issued in 1922 - 23 with overprints. However, since the overprints were all applied with single handstamps or in manuscript, it is inevitable that some stamps got missed. One should expect to find the occasional used stamp without an overprint.

In addition, both the Gibbons catalogue (following Tchilingirian and Ashford) and the Michel catalogue (following Zakiyan and Saltykov) list deliberate use of two values without surcharge.

Gibbons says that the 250 rouble perforated stamp was used without Manuscript surcharge " 1 k" ( in red or violet) at three post offices in March - May 1923. It lists those post offices as Delizhan, Karaklis and Keshikend.

Above are three used examples of the 250 r perforated stamp. Stefan Berger has studied all three of them with his microscope, telescope and goodness knows what else and can find no visible trace of a surcharge. The third stamp above has a readable ALEXANDROPOL cancel and I think the other two are also with Alexadropol cancels - the similarities are obvious. The first stamp in the row has an Agathon Faberge acquisition note from 1927, the second a MAISON ROMEKO mark. All three seem genuine in all respects to me and to Stefan Berger. So it looks like that at Alexandropol they also used this stamp without surcharge and probably deliberately since here we have three examples, not just a random one from a missed surcharge.

Michel says that the 25 rouble ( unspecified whether perforated or imperforate or both) which was later surcharged as a 4 kopeck stamp was also issued unsurcharged for use as a 1500 rouble stamp in the period January - May 1922. [This paragraph rewritten on the basis of a Comment from Alexander Epstein ] 

Anyway, the 25 rouble shown above with ERIVAN cancel of November 1922 does not appear to have any regular 4 kop surcharge. However, and just to complicate matters, there is a small violet ink mark under the day of the date line in the cancellation. This could either be randon or it could be a squiggle representing a number "4". Maybe this is a stamp from which the regular surcharge was accidentally omitted and a clerk made a manuscript correction. In the absence of other examples, who knows? All that is clear is that this stamp also lacks a regular surcharge. 

Armenia: First Yessayan set 1922 - Forged Overprints

Most forged overprints on First Yessayan stamps are easy to detect: either they are on forged basic stamps or the overprints are very different from the genuine ones. Of course, there is still a good market for these forgeries on ebay and all over the world there are people who have paid fifty dollars for a stamp I would sell them for fifty cents.

But there are also serious forgeries which always use genuine basic stamps and where the overprint handstamps have been made by forgers who have seen the genuine item.For example, there is a good forgery of the "50k" in black on 25 000 Ararat, imperforate in blue, which copies the fact that the overprint is normally centrally placed at the base of the stamp. Here it is:

Click on Images to Magnify

And now here is the genuine overprint:

There are numerous differences which you can see if you examine from left to right. Look at the shape of the "0" for example. In addition, and not so clear from my scans, is the fact that the ink is wrong on the forgery: it is a paler blue-black or grey-black. But the genuine overprint is always in a fairly intense black, not diluted.This is the difference I look for first and the left to right examination then confirms it.

And now here is a multiple with the genuine overprint, which will become relevant in a moment:

If you look at the bottom right stamp in this block you will see that because of the way the handstamp has been held on that occasion, the "k" has not printed properly. This is useful to see because here is a single used copy from ALEXANDROPOL 3 2 23 showing the same failure of the "k" to print properly. But by using the mint multiple for reference, we can be sure that this overprint is genuine, as one would expect from the genuine Alexandropol cancel. You can also see how intense is the black ink of the overprint compared to the ink of the cancelllation:

The stamps on this Blog are for sale as one group for 500 €uro

The block of six comes with a Stefan Berger Opinion

Peter Ashford collection 6: Armenia First Yessayan, Mount Ararat

Serious collectors of Armenia know that one way to test whether the stamp shown above is genuine - from the Yessayan printings in Constantinople - is to look for a dot or a dash above the top frame line, two thirds along from the left. Stefan Berger has written about this on his website

www. stampsofarmenia.com 

Sometimes I have been asked, Is the dot or dash always there?

This large block is interesting because it is from the early printings in milky-blue. Multiples of later printings in a darker blue and with some wear to the lithographic plate can be found with the "50k" overprint in black, but multiples from this early state are rare. So I looked at this one with interest.

There is always a dot or dot + dash but sometimes it is almost invisible. Click on the Image below to see it magnified - you can easily see the amount of variation:

In the past, I have done work to establish transfer groups. Usually it is quite easy. But on this part sheet, I cannot see what the transfer group may have been ... maybe I am missing something

Armenia 1921 : Second Yessayan

This is a curious and rather beautiful set (Michel IIIa - IIIr) prepared by the (Y)essayan Printing Works in Constantinople at the same time as the First Yessayan set. The series was intended for use as Obligatory Tax stamps for Famine Relief, along the same lines as those issued in Azerbaijan and Georgia.

There were 16 stamps - eight different designs, each one printed both in grey and in red. As with the First Yessayan set, only some were issued and then only with surcharges.

For these stamps I have only one stockbook, since in all forms they are relatively scarce:

1. Unoverprinted stamps from the Original printing in which there was one sheet for each value. You will normally only find Originals for the stamps which were NOT issued and even then they are scarce. Unoverprinted examples of the issued stamps are rarities and I currently have none in stock. The Michel pricings only make sense as prices for reprints and even then they are low. I sell Reprints at 10 euro each if they are in nice ** condition. But I ask 100 euro for a ** Original, when I can find one. Michel has 2 euro 50 cents ....

2. Stamps with genuine overprints. Of necessity, genuine overprints are only found on stamps of the original printing. Some mint values are reasonably common, notably the "20" surcharge on 5000 r grey. Correspondingly, this stamp in used condition is rare - at least as rare as the "15" on 5000 r red to which Michel gives the highest used valuation

3. First Reprints. Made by Yessayan by re-setting the 8 values onto just two sheets

4. Second Reprints. Made by Yessayan by re-setting all values a second time onto just one sheet

The fact that there are two distinct sets of Reprints explains why there is not just a gradual deterioration in print quality. In addition, First Reprints are on a white paper which is either without gum (about 50%) or with a good white gum. Second Reprints are always gummed and the gum is yellowish, giving the paper a yellowish appearance.

You rarely find se-tenant examples of different reprint values. This is because the sheets were cut up by packet makers in the 1920s and 1930s. I guess it annoyed them that Yessayan did not put equal numbers of each value onto his reprint sheets!

For pictures of the two distinct Reprints in sheets, see Stefan Berger's article in Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer Russland-Philatelie, # 93, November 2010. Each Reprint was made for BOTH grey and red values. I think the print run of the first Reprint was probably bigger than that for the second.

Any surcharge on a Reprint is going to be a Forgery. It's that simple. In a rational world there would be NO forged surcharges on Original stamps, since the Originals without surcharge are much much scarcer than with surcharge. However, people are sometimes badly informed (look at the Michel prices) and there may be Forged surcharges on genuine Original stamps.

5. The Forgery. There is only one recorded Forgery type which is so bad that it seems likely it was made from catalogue illustrations in the 1920s. The gum is really thick and brown and the paper grey brown. These Forgeries should not trouble any serious collector. Curiously, the red forgeries are RARE! Maybe the printer did not have enough red ink to print a decent quantity ...

Armenia 1921 First Yessayan: Quantity and Quality

Collectors who exhibit in order to win medals have to search for Quality and that usually means rare stamps and rare covers.

This may be one reason why basic philatelic research is sometimes neglected. Old fashioned research almost inevitably involves accumulating in quantity - just to see what's out there and to classify and evaluate it.

Soviet Armenia's first set of pictorials consists of 17 values, prepared imperforate and perforated (Michel II a - s). That's 34 stamps to kick off, to which has to be added Proofs and Colour Trials.

Only some stamps were issued and always with handstamped or handwritten surcharges in a variety of styles and in two colours (black and red). Collect one of each and you are heading towards a hundred stamps.

To deal in this issue, one of my "Specialities", I look at my shelves and realise that over the years I have accumulated five large stockbooks:

1. Genuine stamps from the Original printing carried out at the [Y]essayan Printing Works in Constantinople. A very unbalanced stockbook now. Perforated stamps are generally scarcer and the 25 000 in brown perforated is rare. I don't have one but I have hundreds of others in this book.

2. Genuine overprints, which have to be on stamps of the Original printing, in red and black. Red are generally scarcer (except for the 1 on 1) but some black surcharges are very scarce - the 35 on 20 000 and the 3 on 20 000, for example. There are varieties not listed in Michel (you will find them in Zakiyan). None of them are philatelic - the Armenian Bolsheviks has no time for stamp dealers, and even imprisoned one of them (Melik - Pacher / Pachaev).

3. The common Forgery on bright, brittle paper with shiny gum. So common that they are sometimes classed as Reprints, but actually they just don't seem like Yessayan's work especially if you compare with the Reprints he undoubtedly did make of the Second Yessayan series. A very fat stockbook of little value, but with annoying gaps. You would expect the numbers to be more equally distributed than they are in this bulging stockbook, worth no more than a couple of hundred (pounds, euros, dollars).

4. The scarcer forgeries, of which there are at least two types, on paper and sometimes with gum much closer to the Originals but with much poorer quality printing. Much less common, though I picked up an old Italian dealer's stock of them years ago, including part sheets which you rarely see because most were cut up to fill packets.

5. Forged overprints, generally on forged stamps but sometimes on genuine stamps - and these are usually good ones. Blue-black ink instead of black ink is a common feature of these well-executed forgeries which are often seen in auctions. An interesting stockbook which has involved me in many hours work: assessing "1" and "3" overprints on genuine basic stamps is not easy! An interesting book, yes, but - of course - of virtually no retail value.

In all the many years I have accumulated and traded from this stock, NO collector has ever approached me saying, "I want to research this issue. Have you got a big accumulation that I could study? I'll take thousands if you have got them".

Stefan Berger in Germany ( www.stampsofarmenia.com ) has got his own accumulation, but whether there is anyone else out there with enough stamps to really assess this issue in all its aspects, I don't know. Anyone?