New Light on the 1921-22 Stamps of Armenia: Essayan and Khatchaturian?

I have blogged frequently about the first two pictorial issues of Soviet Armenia, their designer Sarkis Khatchaturian and their printer Vahan Essayan. We already know that Khatchaturian went to Constantinople in 1921  to discuss the new stamps he had designed. He was working for a government which had no money and instead he was provided with sample stamps, the so-called First Star issue, which he was authorised to sell and thereby - I think - fund his trip. From the following letter, it seems this plan did not work out as intended. Khatchaturian is using Essayan's notepaper to provide a Poste Restante address (hence the French endorsement "pour ..." at the top left of the sheet). He is writing about a previous letter asking for financial help from Dr Souren Hovhannisian (who may be living in Egypt) either directly or through an intermediary. The writer's wife is willing to travel to collect funds.

My guess is that Khatchadourian is approaching family or art world contacts for help. He was already a significant figure in the Armenian art world, and today the National Gallery of Armenia holds many of his works.

I am grateful to Haik Nazarian and Stefan Berger for tackling the translation and interpretation of this letter.

Click on Image to Magnify

Click on Image to Magnify

Women on Stamps: Armenia

Click on Image to Magnify

I am sure one of my readers can answer this question to which I don't know the answer:

When and where was the first stamp issued which showed a woman who was not a queen, princess, president or mythical figure? Maybe someone famous, maybe an ordinary person ...

And then maybe a second question:

When and where for a stamp showing a woman doing an ordinary job as on the stamp above?

In the United Kingdom, a woman who wasn't the Queen did not appear until 1968 when the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst appeared on a stamp. In contrast, Turkey had put suffragettes on stamps as far back as 1934, the year in which all Turkish women got the vote. The Soviet Union depicted a female worker and peasant in two of the designs for the 1929 definitive series - earlier definitives showed only male workers, soldiers and sailors (Correct?).

I like the Armenian stamp and think it's a pity it was never issued. It exists in both slate and red as do all the stamps in the series. But another value in the set was issued, with a surcharge and this shows a woman carrying water:

Click on Image to Magnify

The stamps are all from the 1921 Second Yessayan series printed by the Armenian firm of Yessayan (or Essayan) in what was still Constantinople. The stamps were ordered by the new Armenian Soviet government and the designer was Sarkis Khachaturian. Yessayan had fairly recently printed the Wrangel Refugee overprints and the Levant ship fantasies which did not stop him getting the Soviet order.

Part of the original printing of the Second Yessayan stamps was on a porous, yellowish paper rather than the usual white and non-porous paper. The 100r above is on the yellowish paper but both of the 1000r are on the normal white paper. The stamps on the yellowish paper are normally in an ink which is nearly black rather than grey and they are sometimes mistaken for proofs. All the reprints of the slate colour of this stamp are a paler grey and the red stamps a paler red, and only the forgery uses a yellowish paper - but then the paper is not porous and the yellow gum is laid on thick. The unissued 100r stamp above is really quite scarce but the issued stamps with surcharges are not so hard to find.

It would be interesting to know the source of Khachaturian's designs - he also has a shepherd boy, for example, and a train leaving Yerevan station (popular with Thematic collectors). Did he have photographs of the woman spinning and the woman carrying water? Or did he make a sketch? Note that the woman fetching water appears to be barefoot.

A Rare Armenian Cancellation

Click on Image to Magnify

Today's post brought me something I have not had in my stock for a long time: an example of the very first Armenian script postmark, introduced in 1922 for Yerevan Railway Station. It is listed in Christopher Zakiyan's book and is rare. I have never seen it on cover. This clear part strike on a Second Yessayan stamp is worth about 100 € [ 22 July 2015: SOLD]

And here is a train leaving Yerevan Railway Station, pictured on stamps of the same 1922 Second Yessayan series. One writer (I forget the source of this) thinks that on the front of the train the three letters read "USA", put there as thanks for American famine relief work in Armenia, but I don't know if this is true. The group of four stamps is worth about 120 €uro - the mint stamps are hinged, the red used stamp with ALEXANDROPOL cancel is toned and creased; the grey stamp has part NOVO BAYAZET cancel. 

Click on Image to Magnify

Armenia 1922 - 1923 Postal Use of First and Second Yessayan

Evidence of private use of postal services in Armenia during the complete six year  period 1918 - 1923 is extremely scarce.

Mail in a few categories can be found as follows:

- Mail Abroad (mostly to the USA) during 1920 when the British facilitated its transmission
- As a sub-category, Philatelic mail to Tiflis sent during 1920 and notably by Souren Serebrakian
- Mail Abroad ( again mostly to the USA) during 1922 - 23
- Money Transfer Forms sending money internally or within Transcaucasia 1922 - 23

Peter Ashford's collection, about which I recently Blogged, also included a few examples of a further category:

- Internal private mail during 1922 - 23

His material comprised a few large fragments of covers or nearly-complete covers from the so-called "Law Courts Hoard" which was available to Ashford (and Tchilingirian) back in the 1950s and which appears to have been free of the kind of "improvements" made to more recently released archive material which started out as stampless, official letters but  to which stamps have been added in the recent past.

Ashford's material shows private individuals writing to the Courts ("People's Courts" on all the addresses). One puzzle concerns the status of the so-called "Second Yessayan" stamps - the slate and red stamps. These were supposedly Famine Relief stamps, issued around the same period as those in Azerbaijan and Georgia. As such, one expects to find them used in conjunction with "regular" adhesives as evidence of payment of a Charity supplement, as on this cover:

Click on Image to Magnify

This Registered cover started life in DZHELAL OGLY and is cancelled 22 2 23 on the front and 24 2 23 and 25 2 23 on the reverse. It was addressed to a People's Court in Alexandropol and a receiver cancel was applied ALEXANDROPOL 26 2 23. The letter was forwarded to Yerevan and got there though the dates on the two strikes of an ERIVAN cancel are not legible. The franking is provided by two copies of First Yessayan 50 perforated surcharged "5" together with Second Yessayan 2000  surcharged "5" . So one could suppose that the Tariff was 10 gold kopecks and the Charity surcharge 50% of that, 5 gold kopecks. 

However, it is possible to find Second Yessayan stamps used alone, as on this nice and nearly complete cover:

This Registered cover is locally sent within Karaklis, again to a People's Court. The cancellation on the front is date readable as KARAKLIS ERIVAN 8 7 22. Franking is provided by a single copy of the Second Yessayan 500 surcharged "3". Now, either the full (local?) Tariff was 3 kopecks and this stamp is used as a regular adhesive not a Charity stamp or - possibly - the Tariff was (say ) 2 kopecks and the Charity contribution 1 kopeck. In the absence of either a 2 kopeck First Yessayan or a 1 kopeck Second Yessayan, the postal clerk could then have decided to show the total paid by means of this one stamp. Does anyone have a better idea?

Ashford's material also included this third item which has no Second Yessayan adhesive. Sent just one month after the first cover I illustrated, it seems we get confirmation of a 10 kopeck Tariff. Sent Registered from KAMARLYU ERIVAN  29 3 23 it has no arrival marks (I am told that it is addressed locally to the Kamarlyu Court - the word in the top line is Kamarlinkskomu). It is possible that something has been left behind when this cover was cut from the archive book - the fragment is very reduced. But even so, one might expect to see at least a small part  of a receiver cancel to one side:

Armenia Second Yessayan Pictorials: For Sale

This Blog isn't a shop but today I am going to say I have something for sale. 

The 1921 /22 Second Yessayan [Famine Relief] pictorials were printed in Constantinople, sent to Yerevan, and issued with surcharges. Unsurcharged copies are normally only found for the values which were not issued at all.

To meet demand for the stamps, Reprints were produced (probably unofficially) by the printer of the original stamps, V M Yessayan. He made two sets of Reprints. The Original stamps had been produced, as normally, one value per sheet. For the First Reprint, Yessayan economised on his lithographic plates by resetting all values onto two sheets - maybe they were one large printer's sheet originally. Each value is printed 18 times, except for the 5000 rouble which has 21 impressions. So there are 147 stamps in total, printed on white paper which is ungummed about 50% of the time and otherwise with a white gum

For the Second Reprints, Yessayan put everything onto one sheet. The sheets are always gummed and the gum is yellow.

I have one set of First Reprint sheets, partly illustrated above - my scanner cannot accommodate the whole sheets. I could cut 18 sets of 8  from these sheets - which is what packet makers did in the 1920s and 1930s -  and I would sell a set for 80 euros (10 euro each fresh never hinged - ungummed - stamp). So the potential total for 18 sets is 1440 euros.  But I don't want to cut these sheets which, for example, show a se-tenant arrangement not found in the Originals and which changes again for the Second Reprints. Are they of interest to anyone as they are?

Armenia 1922 Second Yessayan stamps: a short guide

This set of eight values, each value printed in either red (rose) or slate (grey) was prepared in Constantinople by the (Y)essayan printing works. There are three Yessayan printings and one Forgery of the series:

1. ORIGINAL Printing. Yessayan printed each value on a separate sheet (i.e., normally). As far as I know, no complete sheets now exist and the largest multiples are probably no larger than twenty or thirty stamps. Three values were not issued at all, and the other five values were only issued with surcharges. The values which were not surcharged are scarce and the issued values are rare without surcharge. There is some colour variation in this Original printing and for the grey stamps, there are two distinct papers - though it seems that only some values can be found with both papers. All the stamps were gummed and the gumming is the same as that found on First Yessayan stamps: done with a machine and with a clear gum stop at the sheet edges.

2. FIRST Reprint. Yessayan prepared these for the stamp trade. None were sent to Yerevan and none can exist with genuine surcharges: a surcharge on a Reprint is ALWAYS a forgery.

To economise on lithographic plates, Yessayan RESET the eight values onto just two plates of unequal size. These two plates yield 147 stamps in total providing stamp dealers with 18 sets and 3 spare stamps .... Most sheets were cut up for the packet trade and se-tenant multiples are rarely seen. The paper is always white. About half the sheets were not gummed, and the other half are with white gum which has a different appearance to that used on the Originals.

A pair of First Reprint sheets are in the April 2012 Corinphila auction (Lot 1764). They are from me.

3. SECOND Reprint.. Again to supply the stamp trade, Yessayan made a Second Reprint (probably a couple of years after the First)and this time used just one plate for all values. There are 74 stamps on this plate, yielding 9 sets and 2 spare stamps ... Most of the sheets were cut up for the packet trade and se-tenant multiples are rarely seen. None were sent to Yerevan and a surcharge on a Second reprint stamp is ALWAYS a forgery.

This second reset plate shows the stamps with worn impressions - there are more white areas. The colour of the stamps looks pale in comparison to the First reprint but actually the colours are very similar - it is just the extra white areas which make the stamps look pale.The paper is again white. It seems that most of the sheets were gummed. The gum is yellowish and gives the paper a yellowish appearance.

4. The Forgery. There appears to be only one Forgery type. The designs are crude, the paper grey, and the gum thick and yellow. The Forgeries copy the Reprints: the different values are printed se-tenant, but I do not know if one or two plates were used.Examples can be found with the gum washed off and from these copies you can see that the paper is normally grey and coarse. For some reason, red Forgeries appear to be scarcer than grey forgeries.

The consequence of this printing history is that a complete collection of this issue WITHOUT SURCHARGES - excluding shade, paper and gum varieties and se-tenant groups comprises 16 Originals, 16 First Reprints, 16 Second Reprints, 16 Forgeries ...

The listing of surcharged stamps in the Michel catalogue is good, but the pricing of the unsurcharged stamps is not sensible.

______________

(Note: the used copy of the red stamp about has a Georgian arrival cancellation at top)

Armenia 1922 Second Yessayan stamps

For the serious Armenia collector this torn scrap is a rich source of information.

Here is one of the scarcer Second Yessayan stamps showing the broad "4" overprint. The letter was posted at KARAKLIS ERIVAN "a" 23 6 22. The cancellation shows typical ink and clear strikes of features which forgers often get wrong.

But Karaklis was using old Imperial Registration labels of ERIVAN at this time, modified in violet ink to "Karaklis" (in Cyrillic).

The cover went first to Alexandropol and received an ALEXANDROPOL "zhe" 24 6 22 cancellation. This cancel is genuine and because the "zhe" is struck on the white margin of the stamp you can see that it is the genuine cancellatioon and not one of the fakes you will find at various points in the ARTAR catalog (see my previous Blogs on this subject)

The envelope was then forwarded to a People's Court in Yerevan - see the bright violet endorsement - and was received at ERIVAN "b" 29 6 22: the strike shows clearly the Cyrillic "b" serial which most forgeries get wrong (go again to the ARTAR catalog)

If I was better at reading Cyrillic there is more information to be extracted from this item - and if more collectors bought items like this, they would be less likely to end up paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars and euros for the fake items which appear regularly, even in serious auctions