Ukraine Trident Overprints: Inverted Varieties

Most 1918 Ukraine Trident overprints were applied by hand. Machine printed Tridents were applied to make Kiev/Kyiv type 3 and Odessa/Odesa types 1, 2 and 3. Since Ukraine was a big country even in 1918 (population between 25 and 30 million) dozens of clerks were kept busy overprinting sheets of Imperial stamps. It must have been very boring, the boredom perhaps relieved by alcohol when it could be obtained or at least tea and tobacco.

But inverted overprints from handstamps are really very uncommon. This is surprising. I think there may be three explanations:

1.      If a clerk started overprinting with the handstamp held upside down, he (always he, I suspect) would probably notice and correct the error. It would require real carelessness to work through a whole sheet using the handstamp upside down. It’s true that in poor light, some stamps don’t obviously self-identify as the right way up, so if the sheet , not the handstamp, was upside down this might be missed. The pale yellow of 1 kopek is the most obvious example of a stamp which does not shout out when it is the wrong way up and it’s true that inverted overprints on the 1 kopek are generally more common than on other values.

2.      The work of individual clerks was supervised and checked. This may explain the use of “correcting handstamps” applied over poor examples of a trident overprint or onto stamps which had somehow missed an overprint. Correcting handstamps are found, for example, on stamps of Poltava.

3.      Dealers and speculators of the time no doubt wanted to have inverted overprints to sell at a premium. Asked for such varieties, postal officials may not have been as co-operative as they sometimes are. The Trident was a symbol of new independence and national pride. To apply it upside down at this early stage of a political revolution may have been thought disloyal or, at least, lacking in seriousness. In contrast, varying the colour of the ink may have been more acceptable. So-called Svenson varieties on things like Kiev 2gg are ink varieties; inverted overprints are still not common on these varieties. Only for Odessa/Odesa ( a very Russian city) do you get lots of inverted overprints, clearly made to order. In addition, it may be that handstamps were taken away from post office premises and used by dealers like Trachtenberg who did their own work and created their own varieties.

Catalogue listings of the inverted overprints are not systematic. Dr Seichter tends to give a general guide, suggesting premiums on the normal valuation. Bulat lists some inverts but not others, as I was reminded when I looked up this little group of Kharkov/Kharkiv I. Bulat lists several values with inverted overprints but not this one, even though these postally-used stamps (ex the Schmidt collection) have very old UPV guarantee marks. It seems likely that they are all from the same sheet and with cancellations of what I read as BOGODUKHOV KHARK - now the small Ukrainian town of Bohodukhiv. 

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Poltava Tridents: Types !a, 1b and 1c

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The Imperial 10 rouble stamp is very useful when you are studying Ukrainian and Armenian Civil War overprints. The pale grey centre allows you to see the overprint clearly. Above I show three of the four sub-types of the Poltava overprint, 1a, 1b and 1c, left to right - I can't show the so-called Type 2 (why not 1d?). 

The 10 rouble imperforate was more widely distributed in Ukraine than in Russia and nearly all the early (1918) uses I have seen are from Ukraine. The stamp came into use in the Spring of 1918, so well before Trident overprinting began in August. Th earliest date of use that I have recorded is 

1 March 1918 on a Parcel Card fragment from LOKHVITSA in Poltava guberniya.

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Trident of Poltava (Type 2) with a Bonus ...

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Before about 1900, sheet watermarks in papers are often very elaborate. They go well beyond telling you the papermaker's name. Beehives, Eagles, Castles .... So it is not surprising that there are collectors of such watermarks. It's just rather difficult to display the material - you need light boxes.

About a dozen years ago I bought the Lindenmeyer collection of Ukraine (the Lindenmeyer who catalogued the Fabergé Zemstvo collection for sale at Corinphila in 1999). In it were many attractive items like the one above. It's a Poltava Type 2 trident on the "old" 7 rouble stamp of Imperial Russia (Bulat # 1030, catalogued $275). It's never hinged mint.

But what "makes" this item is the beautiful sheet margin watermark, which only needs black backing paper to make it visible. It is a papermaker's triumph: not only are there the vertical lines which philatelists concern themselves with but the beautiful ornamentation which can only be appreciated when you have marginal stamps like this one.

One of my uncles (Jack Burke) worked as a crafstman papermaker in an old paper mill at Eynsford, Kent in England. The paper was made by hand, the craftsman shaking the pulp into sheet format. My uncle told me that sometimes a man would suddenly lose the ability to shake correctly. That was the end of his career.

At home, Uncle Jack kept samples of his work, heavy rag papers which were I imagine off the Richter scale in terms of gsm. They had watermarks. When I was a boy in the 1950s, he would sometimes give me a few sheets. I remember them mainly because the edges were so sharp that you could slice your thumb open if you ran it along the edge of the paper.

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:

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Ukraine on Philasearch - Now is a good time to look

Now is a good time to look at Ukraine material on Philasearch.

On the one hand, you can see the Dr Ron Zelonka collection for sale in Corinphila's September auction - a collection which incorporates the Dr Seichter collection and part of the John Bulat collection. If you want to see some serious - and sometimes spectacular - postal history, you will find it here.

On the other hand, you can see the usual philatelic covers and cards for which auction houses try to get ridiculous prices. You can even see a pretty but completely forged Poltava postcard. These are quite common - there was a little industry making them, maybe seventy or eighty years ago - and when I get one I usually pass it on for a few pounds to one of my clients who likes such things.

The high point of these Poltava fakes is that the forgers went to the expense of making a fake cancellation - but in a style which suggests that they wanted it NOT to look like a genuine one.

But on Philasearch you will have to pay a lot of money for an example. It is signed by someone whose name you will know :)

When you have finished with the Zelonka material, do have a look at the little collection of Chernihiv (Chernigov) Tridents on an album page. This is something I put together. You could buy it for about the same price as a fake Poltava postcard. Unlike the postcard, it's genuine.


BTW, remember that "Ukraine" and "West Ukraine" and "Carpatho-Ukraine" are separate search terms on Philasearch - the Zelonka collection comes up for all of them

Blue-Green Tridents of Poltava

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Until his death in 1999, I used to send John Bulat material for expertising and comment.

At one point, I had some unusual Trident overprints which I found in remainders of the Vyrovj collection - there was a bulk lot at the end of the 1980s Schaetzle sale which I got from another dealer who had bought it and then done nothing with it. Too complicated!

Included were some Poltava type I tridents in an unusual blue - green / dark greenish - blue colour, most of them on the 25 kopeck perforated and all cancelled ZIENKOV (Zinkov): see the scan

Bulat signed these and gave them a - - (rare) valuation in the note he sent when returning them

These blue-green tridents are not, however, examples of the GREEN tridents of Poltava. These really are green. In the upcoming Corinphila sale of the Ron Zelonka collection, there is a cover with a strip of the 1 kopeck imperforate overprinted in green (Bulat 1025) - I have never seen these green stamps on cover before.

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:

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John Bulat's Comprehensive Catalog of Ukrainian Philately

Bulat's catalog published in 2003 has become the catalog of choice for Ukraine collectors. The reasons are fairly simple: every stamp has a number, a mint price, and a used price. It's as comprehensive as Dr Seichter's work, which it follows closely, and it's in English and Ukrainian rather than German. Seichter's work has no numbering and is poorly presented.

Bulat is not without faults. I notice, for example, that the coverage of colour variations for Kyiv II overprints is not consistent: sometimes known variants are listed, sometimes not. Listing of inverted overprints is also not consistent.

This is minor. More important is the large number of typographical errors. Where these involve pricing, they can often be corrected by referring back to Seichter's catalog: in general, Bulat's $ price is arrived at by halving the Deutschmark figure in Seichter. So if Seichter has 100 and Bulat has $5 that's going to be a typographical error for $50

One of Bulat's special interests was in the Tridents of Poltava. He did fresh work on the 25 - cliche handstamps and this is presented at pages 50 - 73. Some of the panes on which Bulat's work is based will appear for sale in the upcoming Corinphila auction of Dr Ron Zelonka's collection.

But the pricing of these panes is a mess. For example, a single copy of a 2 kopeck imperforate with a Type I handstamp in violet is priced at $10 (Bulat 963). But a complete pane of 25 is priced at $50 (Bulat 909,913, 927). The $50 must be a mis-print for $500 on the basis that if a single is worth $10 then a pane of 25 is worth a minimum of $250, doubled to recognise the scarcity of the 25-cliche handstamps in complete units.

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