Very, Very Difficult Local Tridents: Lubashivka

I promise that this is the third and last Blog in this short series on Local Tridents. And I warn you that you may need a strong coffee (or something even stronger) to get through to the end ... [ But the good news is that this Blog has been corrected on 19 October 2012 and now makes more sense :)]

You know there are going to be problems about Lubashivka when you try to spell it. Dr Seichter tries both LUBASCHEWKA and LJUBASCHEWKA. Dr Ceresa sticks with LIUBASHIVKA and John Bulat with LUBASHIVKA. I follow Bulat here but reckon that the Imperial postmark would have read LIUBASHEVKA (this is what I transliterate from the late Gary Combs' Imperial postal place names list - I can't reproduce the original Cyrillic here).

Rather more importantly, no one agrees what the Lubashivka Trident looks like:

At the top Dr Seichter shows us a stamp, or rather a photograph of a stamp, which is reproduced in Dr Ceresa's publication on the Special Trident Issues (Plate CDXCIX). Underneath is Dr Ceresa's enhanced copy of this photograph - he has drawn in the lines of the trident so we can see them. Next comes John Bulat's design (page 128 of his Handbook) followed by Svenson's 1932/5 catalogue illustration. Then there is a random illustration which Dr Seichter has on his album page. Then comes a Seichter drawing based on another stamp. Finally, there is John Bulat's illustration for an "Unknown" type at page 137 of his book.

Well, even a casual glance should indicate that our authors are not in agreement. Does the central spike balance on the top of the base cap with a horizontal line (Bulat's first illustration) or is it pinched in (Svenson's illustration) or is the space between base cap and spike open? These are major differences!

On this question, Forgers also disagree but the majority opt for Svenson's pinched line:

What - if anything - is the truth? Well, the 10/7 kopeck used stamp of which Dr Seichter has a photograph turned up in the Schmidt collection, signed by Dr Seichter. In addition a 15 kopeck imperforate used stamp was linked to it with a note from Seichter and his signature.

When Dr Seichter writes "so eingepäckt nicht möglich zu signieren" - so packed up like this not possible to sign - he means it literally: some of Schmidt's rare stamps were enclosed in tiny cellophane packets which were used before the days of Hawid mounts. They are very difficult to open - I use a scalpel to slit them and take out the stamps and I did this going through Schmidt's collection, keeping the little pieces of paper for future study. But of course Dr Seichter could not sign a stamp packed up in a cellophane bag! So he signed these little slips of paper instead with his official handstamp. 

The Trident on the 15 kopeck is unclear. But there is something important that these two stamps have in common and which would lead anyone to group them togethere: the cancellation is the same and it is in the same (and unusual) blue-green ink. And in the case of the 15 kopeck two letters are very clear and they read "...ASH..." just as we should expect if these stamps have anything to do with LubASHivka. 

In addition, both the trident overprints appear to be in the same ink and they both appear to be of the same dimensions (they are large tridents as Tridents go). 

Seichter does not list the Lubashivka Trident on a 15 kopeck imperforate. Neither does Bulat. They both list it on the 15 kopeck perforate. But Svenson lists it on the 15 kopeck imperforate and not on the 15 kopeck perforate.This is relevant to what follows.

Go to Bulat page 137 where he has the "Unknown" Trident illustrated last in the display above - and there he lists a 15 kopeck imperforate with violet overprint (Bulat Q4) and comments "The 15 kop has been found with a partial cancellation in green ink which has the same characteristic as the ink used in Lubashivka". Bulat probably got this information from Seichter or Schmidt and it may be that all that has happened over the years is that imperforate got switched to perforate at some point.

But there remains a genuine question: Are these two stamps with characteristic Lubashivka cancellations overprinted with the same Trident or not and, if so, which Trident among the ones I have illustrated?

This time YOU have to do the work. Just click on my image to enlarge it. Comments welcome.

:)

Postscript: The Forgeries are stamps I showed to Ron Zelonka and which he condemned. It may be helpful to see the two 10 / 7 kopeck stamps together:

Second Postscript 9 October 2012:

Tobias Huylmans using more advanced methods than I have available gets the Trident image below from the 10/7 kopeck Seichter signed stamp (the stamp on the left just above). It confirms the fan-like top to the spike but leaves some doubt about how the spike joins the base though it rules out the idea of the spike sides smoothly joining the base cap and leaving the middle space open.

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

Lubotyn / Lubotin: rare stamps for £1?

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

This Blog is a response to some questions asked by a client in Australia, Mark Kornitschuk, about the Special or Local Trident type of Lubotin (Seichter's spelling) or Lubotyn (Bulat's spelling). He had been reading Seichter, Bulat and Ceresa - all referred to below. I have added a further reference at the end.

In his 1966 catalog of Ukrainian Trident overprints, Dr Seichter lists a local Trident type VIII for Charkow /Kharkiv and in brackets links it to the town of Lubotin. He lists it on 9 values, one of which he records as ONLY known in used condition on the old 3r50 rouble black and grey and gives a - - value, which means "too rare to call". One value he records known both mint and used, and seven values only known mint. These mint stamps he values at 350 or 360 Deutschmarks each which is high: Seichter does not use a number over 500, after that it becomes - -.

In his posthumous 2003 catalog of Ukrainian Tridents, John Bulat expands the list of known values to 10 and expands the number for which the Trident is known in used condition to 4. He also records the 3r50 as known mint and values it at - -. He puts a number on 8 of the values in mint condition, $200 each, and on 2 values used, for which the number is $250. Bulat comments "Type 8 is known only from the town of Lubotyn"

In between, Dr Ceresa in his 1987 Handbook devoted to the Special Trident Issues (Parts 20 / 23 of his Ukraine volume) consigns the Liubotyn Tridents to his Category III: Bogus Types (page 390), and values them all at £1 each, mint or used (page 425).

Why? Ceresa illustrates an album page from Seichter's collection at Plate DXIII and comments that all except one of the stamps illustrated is mint. He queries the used stamp because it appears to have a 1922 postmark and he adds that the four or five "used" Liubotyn stamps he has seen have had the Trident on top of the postmark. If this is true and if the Trident is the genuine type of Lubotin (and not a forgery of the Trident), then this is fatal to the idea that we are looking at an authentic issue

Seichter's album page no longer exists: the next owner of the Seichter collection re-mounted it. Ceresa's illustration shows a page of 13 stamps with the comment "Nur wenige Stücke bekannt" - only a few copies known. Seichter also refers at the bottom of his page to two unillustrated stamps: "Noch bekannt je eine 10/7 Kop ungebr. und 1: 3,50 Rub. alt gebr" - "Also known one mint 10/7 and one 3 rouble 50 used"

So if you are interested in rarities, here's an overprint where - - in the Ukraine catalogs means "one known" !

The stamp I want to see is the 3r50 used and Seichter does not illustrate this. The small remainders of this high value but obsolete stamp were used up in post offices to frank Money Transfer Forms with Trident-overprinted stamps. When they are found used, they often have security punch holes. Because of the large size of the stamp, it is often possible to read the postmark. So if we are going to find a readable Lubotin / Lubotyn / Liubotyn postmark it is going to be on this stamp.

So where is this stamp? A thought occurred to me. In 1960 Dr Seichter published a booklet on the Tridents of Kharkiv (Soltau, 1960). I found my copy. He illustrates the Type VIII Trident only once on a mint copy of the 1 kopeck (Tafel XI). But in the text, he says this "Von dieser seltenem und als fraglich angesehenen Typen wurden mit einige Stücke aus Amerika zur Prüfung übersandt, darunter von Herrn Bulat dies bisher unbekannten Werte 10/7 und 20/14 Kop., ungebraucht, sowie aus der Yakowliw -Sammlung eine 3, 1/2 Rubel alt auf kleinem Postanweisungs-Stück. Hier bleibt offen, ob der Aufdruck vielleicht nachträglich aufgesetzt wurde" (page 7). I translate: "Of this scarce and questionable Type, a few copies were sent to me from America for expertising, among them from Mr Bulat the previously unrecorded values 10/7 and 20/14 kopeck, mint, as also from the Jakovliv collection an old 3 1/2 rouble on a small piece of Money Transfer Form. Here it remains open whether the overprint was applied later" - presumably because the cancellation did not tie the Trident.

But it would still be good to see this stamp. So where is the Jakovliv / Jakovlev Collection?

As a dealer, I have handled 4 copies of the Lubotyn Trident, all mint, in twenty years. Three were sold by Corinphila in 2008 (Sale 156, Lot 5274). Of these, one was originally on the Seichter album page illustrated in Ceresa's handbook and one was signed by Dr Seichter. My final copy was sold recently.