Romanian Occupation of Pokutia: A Puzzling set of stamps

 

Ingert Kuzych  has sent me the above scan of five puzzling stamps. Below I reproduce his thoughts about them. But he would like to know more - if anyone now knows. If you do, please email him directly at ingert@verizon.net

A “High-Value C.M.T.” Issue

 

A different type of “C.M.T.” issue exists, this time with a black-ink overprint of "C.M.T. Roman POCUTIA" on five high-value Austrian stamps and surcharged with new, higher values as follows: K. 1.20 on 1-Krone, K. 1.20 on 2-Kronen, K. 1.20 on 3-Kronen, K. 4 on 4-Kronen, and K. 4 on 10-Kronen (Figure 33). Two different handstamps were used in creating these stamps, the overprint design of which is far more refined than the simple one found on the regular “C.M.T.” occupational stamps. A double-lined frame surrounds the four-line overprint text, which is composed of three different fonts.

 

Very few of these “High-Value C.M.T.” stamps exist; they were supposedly also prepared for the 1919 Romanian occupation but never issued. The ‘K. 1.20 h.’ values match the ‘1 K. 20 h.’ values of the regular “C.M.T.” Issue; the ‘K. 4.’ values would have served to pay for telegram services. However, the exact reason for their manufacture – legitimate need versus speculative creation – remains unclear. A set of the five unissued values is apparently quite rare, with one expertizer claiming to only know of two complete sets ever assembled.

Romanian Occupation of Pokutia C.M.T. overprints and the Ivan Cherniavsky Monogram

Click on Images to Magnify

At the very useful Philatelic Experts website created by G. Kock (www.filatelia.fi) you can find a drawing of Dr Ivan Cherniavsky's Monogram handstamp, the drawing provided by the Ukrainian Philatelic and Numismatic Society. An image of the real thing can be seen, in violet, on the stamp above together with one of John Bulat's handstamps BULAT BPP from the time when he was a Bundesprüfer for the German BPP

I think there is a little story here. Dr Ivan Cherniavsky was joint creator of the Pokutia C.M.T. overprint issue of 1919 together with Major Turbatu of the Romanian occupation forces. I have written about this in two previous Blogs. You can use the Labels below to find them.

Cherniavsky was a lawyer in charge of the Kolomya District Court and most of the existing non-philatelic envelopes franked with the C.M.T. issue are addressed to the Court, where they were collected by Dr Cherniavsky.

Cherniavsky was a cover collector and would not have removed a stamp from a cover unless ...

The clue is in the green colour of the paper adhering to the stamp. This stamp was removed not from an envelope but from an entire letter - and more specifically a Court Delivery Letter. Such letters or entires were often on thin greyish or greenish paper. In Pokutia, as in the rest of Galicia, a Court Delivery post operated which in the Austrian and Polish periods used distinctive adhesives, the Gerichtszustellungmarken. The stamp above has also been used as a Court Delivery stamp - and Cherniavsky had to peel it off the letter because the document to which it was affixed had to stay in the Court archives, unlike the lawyers' envelopes which he could remove complete. Cherniavsky applied his Monogram after peeling the stamp off the Court Delivery document.

The stamp is uncancelled. Twenty years ago John Bulat - who at some point acquired material from Cherniavsky's collection -  sold me three or four examples of this stamp which did not have postal cancels but did have paper on the back. He was puzzled by them. I think I have solved the puzzle.

In fact, I want to go a bit farther and suggest that the C.M.T. overprints on Austrian Postage Due stamps (Bulat 9 - 13; this is an example of #9) were intended as Court Delivery stamps and were indeed used as such.

Maybe one of my readers can produce a complete Court Delivery document to support this claim? The stamp is for sale.

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More Thoughts on 1919 C.M.T. overprints of Pokutia

In the literature (Cherniavsky, Kronenberg, Bulat and others) it is usual to distinguish between "Originals" and "Reprints" for the C.M.T. overprints from the Romanian Occupation of Pokutia. However, it is not in practice possible to distinguish Originals and Reprints from the handstamps (the same ones were used) or from the ink (the same ink pads were used).

This suggests to me an alternative way of thinking (helped by discussion with two of my correspondents). We could think in terms of

(1) Genuine C.M.T. overprints on Austrian stamps, prepared in Chernivtsi at the time
(2) Genuine C.M.T. stamps actually distributed in Pokutia. Here we know from Cherniavsky that only a limited range of combinations of basic stamp and overprint value were distributed in Pokutia and in limited quantities. John Bulat in his Catalog gives the same listing as Cherniavsky and I think we can assume this is correct. However, we will only be able to know that a stamp is from the batch distributed in Pokutia if it is USED and has a postmark from one of the offices to which the stamps were distributed and dated at the correct period. Maybe between twenty and forty covers exist which satisfy these requirements and an unknown number of loose stamps. In addition, a number of mint stamps exist (I have only seen four or five) signed with the monogram of Dr Cherniavsky and it is reasonable to assume (but impossible to prove) that these stamps were ones which were among those distributed in Pokutia.

Above, I show 41 stamps all with genuine overprints on values (or in value combinations) NOT distributed in Pokutia. Some of these have good signatures like that of Mikulski. (Tucked in the corner are three forgeries, one with a Bulat condemnation handstamp)

I also show one genuine cover, correctly franked (60h postage + 1k registration + 20h Charity Tax) which is unusual because it is NOT addressed to the District Court - most known genuine covers are addressed to the District Court in Kolomyja where Cherniavsky worked. The cover is ex-Zelonka collection (and Zelonka deciphered the date on the cancellation as 2 VIII 19) and signed BULAT BPP with a recent Ceremuga certificate.

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Romanian Occupation of Pokutia - again

I just received my copy of Ingert Kuzych's new Comprehensive Catalog of Western Ukrainian Postage Stamps 1918-1919 and, as one often does, started from the back. Pages 57 -58 are devoted to the CMT overprinted stamps which were issued during the Romanian Occupation of Pokutia.

Kuzych sticks to the "short" CMT listing which you will find in John Bulat's catalog but - except in one instance - he downgrades the prices to below those in Bulat - and below the prices being achieved in recent auctions (Raritan, for example). The "short" list includes only those combinations of stamp and overprint originally issued. Reprints using the original handstamps can be found on a larger range of stamp + overprint combinations - see the list in Michel, for example.

Kuzych comes in lower than Bulat because he thinks that "It is not possible to readily distinguish stamps of the original 13 values from their reprints" so the prices he gives relate to his assessment of the combined numbers of originals and reprints. In contrast, Bulat prices on the Originals and though he expertised CMT overprints, to my knowledge, he nowhere indicates how to differentiate originals and reprints

In my view it is true that for mint stamps, originals and reprints cannot be reliably distinguished except where the basic stamp + value combination is wrong.But used stamps can be differentiated and Original stamps used within the Occupation period identified. The latter are rare but if they have postmarks dated in the period of occupation from one of the offices supplied with the CMT stamps, then they are going to be Originals.

As for covers, I would be surprised if more than a few dozen non-philatelic covers exist used within the correct time period at the right offices. But they do exist - the stamps were distributed within Pokutia and were used on correspondence. In his memoir, Czerniawski indicates that he was able to colect them at the time. There are a handful of non-philatelic covers in the upcoming Corinphila sale of the Zelonka collection.

For some reason, Kuzych retains one of Bulat's high valuations: he pitches the 60h on 20 heller green with inverted overprint at $2750. Bulat has $2350 but with a note insisting on positional importance. A block of 4 showing the correct position (first stamp in the sheet based on Cerniawski's narrative account of the original issue) and expertised by Bulat sold recently for $800 before commissions in Raritan, so about half Bulat. I have never seen another example of the positional block.

Even when one lumps Reprints along with Originals, it is my experience that the stamps are scarce. I have a minimum price of 10 euro for a mint stamp in good condition. Curiously, most of the stamps one does come across are in good condition. Whether Originals or reprints, CMT overprints never made it into schoolboy collections. They were always too scarce for that.

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CMT overprints

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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Today, I am looking at CMT overprints

During and especially after World War One, army officers became addicted to occupying bits of other people's territory in order to issue Occupation stamps. They were nice little earners. They cannot be written off, however, because most of them had not only official legitimation but also some legitimate actual use.

This is true of the CMT overprints from the 1919 Romanian Occupation of Pokutia (the district of Kolomya in what was Austria-Hungary, then in what was briefly Western Ukraine, subsequently in Poland and now in Ukraine via the Soviet Union). Pokutia really was the back of beyond and the local occupation issue was the work of just two people, the Romanian Major Turbatu of the occupying forces and Ivan Cherniavsky, a prominent lawyer in Kolomya - and philatelist (though very much a collector rather than a dealer).

When you read the documentation they left behind, you get the feeling that they were both unusually honest and conscientious in their approach. The issue they prepared was simple, comprising just thirteen stamps, and it was distributed to 6 of the 8 post offices under temporary Romanian control, and largely used up. They clearly did themselves a few favours - just eight copies of the #1 stamp which they would have been crazy not to have bought up on the spot. But as things went at the time, this seems modest.

Cherniavsky's real perk, in due course, was to get the secretaries in the Kolomya district court [he was in charge] to let him have envelopes arriving at the court. He was a cover collector and the CMT stamps distributed across the District came back to the Court on envelopes sent in by small town lawyers.

Except from Lanczyn, where it seems [from my research] that a local philatelist bought up the CMT stamps and stuck them for cancellation on blank covers. So they did not travel back to Kolomya - Cherniavsky observed in 1928 that he did not have covers from Lanczyn in his collection and this is probably the reason why!

Indeed, the modest and undemonstrative way Turbatu and Cherniavsky went about things clearly annoyed stamp dealers and even collectors across the borders in Romania and Austria when they got to hear about what was going on. Here were these people issuing stamps and they hadn't been offered any!

The Major and the lawyer seemed oblivious of the kind of demand for these things which existed at the time. Dealers in Vienna could shift tens of thousands of provisional stamps. They weren't interested in covers which had been genuinely used to the District Court.

Eventually, the dealers and at least one collector got their way - presumably by paying to get it - and the Romanians furnished them with new editions of the CMT overprints, using the original handstamps and even the same ink pads, but applied to a much larger range of basic adhesives - around 50 different basic stamps. They also got "Proofs" in red [which I have seen] and blue [which I haven't] in suitably small quantities.[ Turbatu and Cherniavsky seem not to have even thought of making Proofs ].

As far as I can tell, it is generally impossible to distinguish between mint copies of Turbatu - Cherniavsky originals and mint Second Editions which were produced outside Pokutia at Cernauti, like the Originals, but never taken inside Pokutia.

Used stamps from the Original printing will have a very limited range of cancels - probably from just the six offices which received the stamps - from a limited period (14 June 1919 - 20 August 1919). Reprints which have been cancelled will fail this cancellation test.

There is one small complication to this story. A small part of the fresh overprints were done for a Cernauti Professor, Gronich, and applied to stamps he had taken into Pokutia and had CTOd in Kolomya during the period of the Romanian occupation. These overprints were applied [ acccording to my research which still needs further corroboration] in a very watery violet ink, perhaps to disguise the fact that they were being applied to stamps which had already been CTOd. But the CTO dates, at the beginning of August, are within the right time period for legitimate use and with the cancellation then in use at Kolomya.

Does any reader have further information?