RSFSR Tariffs 1922 - 23: Examples from Belarus

At any one time, you will probably find me with a group of RSFSR covers which are waiting to have their Tariff period identified and their franking checked against it. Sometimes it's a slow job. Maybe it was a slow job for the postal clerks too.

Here are two ordinary letters sent from GOMEL P.T.K, the first sent to New York on 16 June 1922 and the second to Paris on 24 July 1922. Both were routed through Petrograd and picked up Three Triangle censor marks there. The Paris letter has a receiver cancel.

The first cover has been carefully sealed with five stamps - I guess the idea was to make the Censor notice the cover, which he or she did - the envelope has been opened and re-sealed through the middle of the back flap and then opened at the top by the recipient. Anyway, this cover is correctly franked. The Tariff of 4 June 1922 applies and it specified a charge of 200 000 roubles for an ordinary letter going abroad. The franking makes that total as follows: 2 x 4 kopeck stamps already revalued to 4 roubles each now further revalued to 40 000 roubles each + 10 kopeck revalued on the same basis to 100 000 + 1 rouble revalued to 10 000 roubles + Charity stamp [ I am assuming] revalued from 100 rouble franking contribution to 10 000 = 200 000 roubles. 

The Tariff of 1 July 1922 applies to the second cover and specifies a charge of 450 000 roubles for an ordinary letter going abroad.  The home made envelope may also be franked to attract the Censor - the franking could have been simpler. What we have is this: 4 x 10 kopecks previously revalued to 10 roubles now revalued to 100 000 roubles each + 2 x 1 rouble revalued to 10 000 roubles each + 4 x 7500 rouble surcharges used at face = 450 000 roubles.

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The next cover is not such a mathematical challenge but it does illustrate an uncommon Tariff. This is a Registered cover sent locally within Minsk with a MINSK GUB 15 1 23 cancellation. The letter is addressed to the People's Commisariat of Finance - "NARKOMFIN" in the first line of the address and again on the violet registry cachet. All the five stamps are used at face value and add up to 150 roubles of which 50 roubles is for the reduced tariff for sending a LOCAL letter and 100 roubles is the standard registration fee.

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How much are these covers worth? They are for sale at 50 €uro each, net.

Moscow to Armenia to the Archives to the Forgers...

I began writing about faked material from Armenia back in the 1990s, after someone sold me a batch of 1922-23 stampless official letters to which genuine stamps had recently been added - and forged cancellations then applied. Nice stampless covers were thus converted into pretty worthless fakes.

Today I was looking through a collection of over 100 RSFSR 1923 "Star" overprint covers and I was reminded of old times.

Here is a single sheet of official correspondence sent from Moscow to Yerevan. On the inside the mimeographed text is dated 2 III 23. On the outside the item is numbered ( you can't see this - I have folded the item)and a PECHAT PAKETOV seal has been applied in violet ink (this you can see).

In the early Soviet period, No..... + Seal no longer seems to guarantee that something is a Free Frank item. In this case, it is being sent outside the borders of the RSFSR to an address in the Transcaucasian Federation, so even if postage was free for this official sitem within the RSFSR it may not have been free to Yerevan. So let's continue:

The weak ERIVAN receiver cancellation is genuine.

The franking is possible but not plausible: combinations of 1922 5th Anniversary stamps and Star overprints can be found but they are unusual (there were just two more in the accumulation I was looking through). The 5 p Star overprint is quite scarce used but very common mint. The 5p Fifth Anniversary is also very common mint. It was the unusual franking which made me look closer.

Look at the MOSCOW despatch cancellation. I don't recall seeing it in this kind of blue-grey before but all things are possible I suppose. However, I went through my accumulation looking for another example of this cancellation. I found two examples and show one applied to a December 1922 philatelic local cover, correctly franked with a 20p / 70 kop stamp. The other one I have is identical in ink and lettering.

The two cancellations are quite different. Much as I would like to have a Moscow to Yerevan item like this, I conclude that the stamps have been added to this document maybe ten or twenty years ago and a fake Moscow cancellation applied. The cancellation is in the wrong ink and the design is only a careless copy.