Russia Pre-Philatelic Cancellations / Russland Vorphila

This particular Blog won't go viral. There are not many collectors of Russian pre-philatelic mail or pre-philatelic cancellations - though some cancellations continued in use after the introduction of postal stationery and even postage stamps.

Recently I bought a collection of pre-philatelic mail of Russia formed by Harry von Hofmann. I did not immediately study it - no one was pressing me to supply them with such material - though I did put one interesting item - an entire letter from DUBOSARY in the auction now online at www.filateliapalvelu.com.

Anyway, today I checked the material I have against the major handbook in this field, Manfred Dobin's Postmarks of Russian Empire (St Petersburg 1993)  - a heavy bi-lingual work in 538 pages with illustrations of postmarks and maps of postal districts. I was pleased to find I have three cancellations not in this Handbook:

1. DMITROV

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This cancellation is on an official stampless wrapper. it reads DMITROV MOSK [va] GUB[ERNIYA] 18 ..... GODA. Though the date is completed in ink as 1860, the style of this cancellation is definitely pre-philatelic and it should exist on earlier material.

2. IRKUTSK

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Dobin lists and illustrates a similar cancellation but capable of printing the date; this cancellation is intended to have the date filled in by hand. Unfortunately, the cancellation is on an undated official wrapper the style and paper of which could date from the 1830s through the 1860s. It is possible, I suppose, that this is Dobin's canceller with the middle removed and so later rather than earlier. He gives a period of use 1838 - 1850 for his cancellation.

3. UNIDENTIFIED

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I can't read this. The last word is Gub[erniya] and the middle word may identify the guberniya as Volin[skaya] The date is filled in as 1867 and it is used on a stationery envelope addressed to Novgrad Volinsk and apparently re-routed (see Mss at bottom of cover) But I cannot identify the town from which the cancellation above originates, once again pre-philatelic in style though used as late as 1867

 Readers? [ Added: See Comments below. Howard Weinert proposes Korets in Volhynia ]

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Early St Petersburg Postmarks

It is not unusual in Western Europe to see pre-adhesive international mail from St Petersburg before 1830 and with cancellations in Roman letters: SANCT PETERSBOURG or ST PETERSBOURG. But Cyrillic cancellations, used on internal mail, are rarely seen outside Russia.

The cancellation shown above only rates a "4" on Manfred Dobin's 1993 rarity scale (it runs from 1 to 10, with 10 the rarest). But this is only the second example I have seen in 20 years.

Maybe ten years ago, I bought the collection of the late George Henderson and with it the example of this cancellation of which Baillie and Peel say, "We know of only one example, on an entire ... with a message dated 16 11 1820, addressed to Narva." I sold this entire to a collector in England.

The example above is an outer letter sheet with nothing to indicate the date. The paper is unwatermarked. Someone has pencilled "1818" bottom left and it may be that the person who made the pencil note had access to the letter enclosed in this outer sheet, otherwise the date is a guess. Dobin gives 1815 - 1830 as the period of use for this cancellation and always in red.