Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials, again

I have previously Blogged about this issue and in the past I mentioned the Lists I had made many years ago when I acquired Dr Ceresa's holdings of this issue, in the mid 1990s. I now publish those Lists.

If you click to enlarge my Lists you will find you can read them

Basically, when I write "nil" this means I did not have the combination of stamp and overprint in question AND that it is not listed as existing by Dr Ceresa in his Armenia handbook.

But where I write "Ceresa" this means that Dr Ceresa lists and prices it BUT that I did not have a copy.

My original selling prices are written in by hand, ranging from £5 to £200 (the £200 was a bit optimistic and I don't think I ever got £200 for one of these stamps even though some combinations are very rare).

It is clear even from a quick glance that for METAL handstamps overprints are normally black and that for RUBBER handstamps overprints are normally VIOLET.

This weekend I am assembling a collection of as many varieties, mint and used, as I now have (I later added to the stock I originally got from Dr Ceresa). It will be quite an extensive collection and I plan to offer it to Corinphila, Zurich for their auction in early 2013.

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Postscript 9 July.
There are several detailed listings of the overprints on these stamps. Dr Ceresa's is not quite complete as I realised putting together the collection referred to above - I found two unlisted varieties in my stock.

Christoper Zakiyan denounces post - 1923 production of new varieties (specifically, new handstamp colour varieties), but he does not list or illustrate them so we do not know what to look for. I do think it very likely that the Soviet Philatelic Agency did use original handstamps and authentic inks to create fresh stocks either of new varieties or scarce original ones. These varieties are often signed SPA on front or back and are only found in mint condition.

Artar has very good illustrations of many genuine types,but there are also faked items illustrated i the postal history. The catalogue listing itself unfortunately cannot be used because of an uncritical approach to what it includes - for example only, no previous writer has claimed that a rubber handstamp for the 75000 surcharge exists and it is reasonable to ask for more evidence before accepting the existence of a previously unrecorded (and very highly catalogued) variety shown only in an unexplained mint example.

Invited Contribution: Tobias Huylmans on Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials with Missing Background

After reading Trevor's interesting post on the Armenia 1923 Yerevan Issue with Missing Backgrounds I wrote him an email asking if I could have a look at his stamps and try to figure out the problem.

After receiving the stamps I did the following:

First I grouped the stamps as Trevor did in three different groups

• Cafe Latte background


• Pale Grey background


• No (visible) background

Than I scanned the "patients" with 1200 dpi saved this. So now we had these stamps:

	Cafe-Latte
	Pale grey
	Without1
	Without2

After that I darkened the images a bit using Photoshop:

	Cafe-Latte
	Pale grey
	Without1
	Without2

Now we can clearly see the background on the first three stamps - the background always is spotted - only the last stamp does not have this feature (what seems to be the background is actually the paper - we get to this later)

So far, using an Image Manipulation Program, we learned that the Without1 stamp, which we thought might be without background, has a very weak but noticeable background!

After this I checked the stamps using a Leica MZ FL III Stereo Microscope:

	Cafe-Latte
	Pale grey
	Without1
	Without2

Now we note that even in the "Cafe Latte" version where the background is clearly visible to the naked eye, it almost disappears under the microscope! You now can hardly tell any difference between the "background" of the stamps!

Now I tried to visualize the background with a higher magnification - I used 45x magnification

	Cafe-Latte (clearly visible background)
	Pale grey (already hard to tell)

The stamp "without1" only showed very few and pale background pigments!

After I did all this there was only one stamp which was MOST LIKELY without the background, now I checked with a very
high magnification for any "cafe latte" or "pale grey" pigments.
I looked all over the stamp but could not find
any remains of any pigments used for the background printing - this only can lead us to one conclusion:

The stamp named here "without2" is really printed without the background color!

For anyone who wants to see the pictures (and some additional ones) in a higher quality:
CLICK HERE

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Along with the Armenia stamps, Trevor sent me two examples of Azerbaijan stamps - one with normal yellow background, the other one with apparently missing color yellow.

I basically performed the same steps as illustrated above - The Photoshop step I skipped - well I did not skip it but it did not bring me any useful results ;-)

	Normal stamp
	stamp with "missing" yellow color

As next step I made some pictures with the Leica MZ FL III

	Normal stamp
	stamp with "missing" yellow color

What first seems to look like yellow pigments on the right stamp are simply some
darker paper fibers - but for sure no yellow pigments!
Here are two more clear examples

	Normal stamp
	stamp with "missing" yellow color

Now as last step I again used a very high magnification (310x) to search for any pigments - first I show you what these pigments look like:

	Normal stamp
	stamp with "missing" yellow color

So, again the only conclusion can be:

The second stamp shown here is for sure without ANY BACKGROUND PRINTING!

For anyone who wants to see the pictures (and some additional ones) in higher quality:
CLICK HERE

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In case you are wondering which kind of technical equipment was used, here is a picture:

At the left side you see my "Zeiss Standard 18" with different objective (6,3x - 25x - 40x - 50x - 63x)

That means with my 12,5 ocular you can see the material looked at with 78,75x - 312,5x - 500x - 625x and 787,5x magnification!)

By now I also have a special UV-Unit integrated into the microscope, this also makes it possible to study the ink and structure of the pigments with UV-light.

At the right side you see the "Leica MZ FLIII" a pretty good stereo microscope - which I mostly use for the comparison of overprints and cancels....

Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials: A Frustrating Variety

Some of the 1923 Yerevan pictorials - the first stamps to be printed in Armenia - are in two distinct colours. Others have a pale colour wash background in a colour similar to the dominant colour.

This is not an all-over wash - the background colour is patterned so that it does not print on parts of the main design: see the first stamp in the display above to see this clearly.

Specialist listings claim that stamps with "background colour omitted" exist. In my experience, it is a real problem to determine in a particular case whether the colour is omitted or not.

For example, on the 2000r the background is sometimes in a pale brown colour (think Cafe Latté)and this is easy enough to see - look at the top row of stamps and see how the background colour does not extend into the Star at the top or the "Z Z" on the shield at the bottom.

But sometimes the background colour is pale grey and it is sometimes hard to see - look at the stamps in the second row. If you thought the background should always be brown then you might think these stamps are without background. That is not so - look again and on the first three stamps in this second row you can see there is a background.

But the last stamp in this row, a mint copy on the right, could be without background - the design,the gum and the paper are combining to play tricks on the eye and I find myself changing my mind ...

In the bottom row is just one stamp which I think is without background.

But I find it so difficult to decide that I do not think I have ever sold a 2000r stamp as an example of "Missing Background".Unfortunately, unsurcharged copies of the stamp are scarce - there were no large stocks of mint remainders of this widely-used stamp. If we had a few large multiples, it would be much easier.

Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials

Though the Michel catalogue has a generally good listing for Armenia, it breaks down for the last issue from the 1919 - 1923 period, the Yerevan pictorials listed as IVa to IVk in unoverprinted form and 171 - 180 for the issued, overprinted stamps.

Michel does not give separate listings for stamps overprinted with metal handstamps and those with rubber handstamps, nor does it distinguish overprint colours except in a footnote which values red overprints at a x 10 premium

Above I show the 1000 rouble stamp (Fisherman on Lake Sevan) with a 50 000 rouble metal overprint in black and then in violet (Top Row) and with a rubber handstamp in black, violet and red (Bottom Row). Chronologically, the rubber handstamps came into use first and you do not find mint remainder stocks for them as you do for the later metal handstamps.

In general, metal handstamps are normally found in black, occasionally (on some values) in violet and, to my knowledge, on only one value in red (the 200 000 handstamp). Dr Ceresa lists in his Handbook a Purple-Black and it is true that, quite often, on turning to the back of the stamp which looks black on the front one can see purple (or violet) pigments penetrating. But I am not sure that this variety can always be reliably distinguished.

When I first acquired from Dr Ceresa, about 20 years ago, his stock of Yerevan pictorial overprints, I tabulated the quantities with different colour overprints from the metal handstamps. I came across this listing, working today in my office, and it breaks down a total of 192 stamps as follows

139 stamps with Black overprints (many of these were from Mint remainder stocks)
30 definitely Purple-black (if in doubt, I assigned them to Black)
19 definitely Violet on just 3 of the ten values possible
4 definitely Red on just 1 value (the 200 000 handstamp - this red overprint may have been a philatelic late production)

For the rubber handstamp overprints, there is a different distribution. A total of 140 stamps broke down as follows:

81 stamps with Violet overprints
38 stamps with Red overprints
21 stamps with Black overprints

The 75 000 rouble handstamp, applied to the 3 000 rouble stamp, only exists in the metal version; there is no rubber handstamp for this value. It is probable that not all values can be found with Red or Black rubber overprints, but all (except the 75 000 just mentioned) can be found with Violet.

It follows that a "basic" collection of metal handstamps will show all 10 values in Black and a "basic" collection of rubber handstamps will show all 9 values in Violet.

An "advanced" collection will contain spaces where it is uncertain whether a particular value can or cannot be found with a particular colour overprint and in both mint and used condition.

Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials

This set of 10 pictorials, the last to be prepared for use in Armenia alone, was also the first to be printed in Yerevan. Though the Bolsheviks allowed no speculative element to enter into the preparation of the issue - there are no deliberate varieties and no CTO material - there is considerable variation in colour, with some errors (omitted backgrounds), quite a few perforation varieties, and some paper varieties. The printing works had not done this kind of job before.

Christopher Zakiyan was able to find in the Archives, details of the numbers printed: in his 2003 book, he gives the following numbers:

50 rouble, 300 r, 400 r, 2000r, 3000r, 4000r, 5000r, 10 000r = 427 500 each value
500 rouble = 882 000
1000 rouble = 810 000

The stamps were only issued in overprinted form. Unoverprinted remainders were sold through Moscow, but the quantities were clearly very unequal. Three or four values can be found in large multiples, including complete sheets: the 50 r, 500 r (probably the most common), and to a lesser degree, the 1000 r and 10 000 r. But, in my experience, the other values are really only found as single copies in old collections.

I have been accumulating this issue for maybe 15 years and it is frustrating not to be able to complete never hinged ** sets, let alone ** sets in blocks 4. I have over a thousand nice ** copies of the 500r but at the present time NO ** copies of the 4000r and 5000r. That's quite a differential!

This state of affairs reflects the choices made when overprinting stamps. Here, too, there are remainders of some values: the 1000 r in metal on the 50r is quite common in mint condition because there was litle demand for this low value stamp (Inflation, Inflation, Inflation) and used copies are scarce. In contrast, while used copies of the 50 000 r in metal on the attractive 1000r (Fisherman on Lake Sevan) are quite common, mint copies of this value are scarce.

To make a serious collection of this issue is therefore a challenge, but with luck and patience the gaps can be filled - and probably not very expensively either.