Women on Stamps: Armenia

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I am sure one of my readers can answer this question to which I don't know the answer:

When and where was the first stamp issued which showed a woman who was not a queen, princess, president or mythical figure? Maybe someone famous, maybe an ordinary person ...

And then maybe a second question:

When and where for a stamp showing a woman doing an ordinary job as on the stamp above?

In the United Kingdom, a woman who wasn't the Queen did not appear until 1968 when the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst appeared on a stamp. In contrast, Turkey had put suffragettes on stamps as far back as 1934, the year in which all Turkish women got the vote. The Soviet Union depicted a female worker and peasant in two of the designs for the 1929 definitive series - earlier definitives showed only male workers, soldiers and sailors (Correct?).

I like the Armenian stamp and think it's a pity it was never issued. It exists in both slate and red as do all the stamps in the series. But another value in the set was issued, with a surcharge and this shows a woman carrying water:

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The stamps are all from the 1921 Second Yessayan series printed by the Armenian firm of Yessayan (or Essayan) in what was still Constantinople. The stamps were ordered by the new Armenian Soviet government and the designer was Sarkis Khachaturian. Yessayan had fairly recently printed the Wrangel Refugee overprints and the Levant ship fantasies which did not stop him getting the Soviet order.

Part of the original printing of the Second Yessayan stamps was on a porous, yellowish paper rather than the usual white and non-porous paper. The 100r above is on the yellowish paper but both of the 1000r are on the normal white paper. The stamps on the yellowish paper are normally in an ink which is nearly black rather than grey and they are sometimes mistaken for proofs. All the reprints of the slate colour of this stamp are a paler grey and the red stamps a paler red, and only the forgery uses a yellowish paper - but then the paper is not porous and the yellow gum is laid on thick. The unissued 100r stamp above is really quite scarce but the issued stamps with surcharges are not so hard to find.

It would be interesting to know the source of Khachaturian's designs - he also has a shepherd boy, for example, and a train leaving Yerevan station (popular with Thematic collectors). Did he have photographs of the woman spinning and the woman carrying water? Or did he make a sketch? Note that the woman fetching water appears to be barefoot.

Armenia in the Michel catalogue

Here are some thoughts on the Michel listing for Armenia. Your Comments are invited.

It is important to understand that Michel lists only stamps which, on the basis of archival research by C Zakiyan, are known to have been officially authorised. Counter surcharges made for dealers like Serebrakian and Melik Pachaev are excluded. In contrast, the Stanley Gibbons listing – based on the work of Tchilinigirian and Ashford – includes these counter surcharges.

Michel 3 – 28 Framed Z overprints

-          The earlier small type overprints are much scarcer and worth x 5 to x 10 more than the larger sized overprints

-          The earlier small overprints are roughly as common in black and in violet. But the larger overprints are scarcer in violet and are worth about x 2 to x 5 the price of black overprints

-         Michel 3,4,5 and 20 are scarcer than the valuations suggest

-          Large framed Z on 7 rouble imperforate exists and may be an official overprint, since the original handstamps would not have been available for late overprinting.

Michel 29 – 56 Unframed Z overprints

-          For the small Z overprints, violet and black are about as common; but for the large Z overprints, violet is much less common and worth x 2 to x 5 the price of black overprints

Michel 57 – 85 Rouble overprints

-          Violet overprints exist for the 1,3 and 5 rouble; they are scarce and worth maybe x 5 – x 10 the  price of black overprints

-          Violet overprints exist for the 10r on 25 kop but they are rarities

-          The valuations for Michel 65,66,72,73,84 are completely wrong based on a mis-reading of C Zakiyan’s first book. Zakiyan gave REMAINDER numbers for various stamps; Michel thought they were ISSUED numbers. Michel 66 for example is a common stamp worth maybe 15 €, not the 750€ given in Michel.

Michel 86 – 118 Combined Surcharges

-          The combined surcharges with framed Z (Michel 86 – 101) are all much scarcer than the unframed ones; Michel makes no distinction in valuations, though it lists the two types separately (Michel 86 - 101 for framed Z; 102 - 118 for unframed Z). Michel does not separately list stamps where the rouble Monogram has been obscured leaving the underlying Z clearly visible.

In general, framed surcharges are worth x 5 – x 10 their unframed equivalents. Only Michel 100 is quite common.

-          Again, some stamps are hugely overpriced due to the misreading of Zakiyan. This is true of Michel 95,96, 110, 111, 116 and 117. Fort example, Michel 111 is worth about 50 - 75 €uro not the 2200€ given by Michel

Chassepot Issue Ia – Ik

-          Stamps from the Original printing are relatively common, but the low values to 15r are scarcer as is the 70r. The set in ** condition is probably worth  20 – 25€

First Yessayan Michel IIa – II s

-          Stamps from the Original printing are probably worth 1€ each imperforate and 2 – 10 € each perforate. The 25 000 brown perforated is a rarity and worth 500 €. Confusion is created by the common Reprints/Forgeries of all values in both perf and imperf.

Second Yessayan Michel IIIa – IIIr

-          Unoverprinted stamps from the Original printing are scarce for those values which were not issued and worth 50 – 100 € each. They are rarities for the stamps which were issued and worth maybe 200 – 500 € each. Confusion is created by the two series of unofficial Reprints made by Yessayan, none of which were sent to Armenia.

-          It is a specialist task to distinguish the three printings.

Gold Kopeck surcharges Michel 142 – 166

-          In general this is a very good listing though 155a is too low (this is the 25 000 brown perforated)

Yerevan Pictorials Michel IVa – IV k

-          A set of the Original printing is not too difficult to find and 10 or 20 € seems about right; some values exist as remainders and are much more common – for example, the 400r

Manuscript surcharges Michel 167 – 170

-          In general this is a good listing, but the 2 kop surcharge (Michel 169) is a rarity.

Yerevan Pictorials with Overprints Michel 171 – 180

-          It’s very strange that Michel does not provide separate listings for the Metal and Rubber handstamps, nor for the three main colours (red, violet and black). This could be done quite easily. It is correct that the red Rubber overprints are generally scarcer. Red Metal overprints are probably Soviet reprints.

Armenianization of Imperial General Fiscals

The last General Revenue stamps of Imperial Russia, issued from 1907 onwards on unwatermarked paper, were printed in sheets of 80, with two panes of 8 x 5 side by side separated by a central vertical gutter. Within each pane the top four rows are organised tete-beche with (as it were) half a tete-beche in the bottom row. Quite why such a complicated sheet make-up was selected, I don't know.

In independent Armenia, these Fiscals were first Armenianized in the Dashnak period with perforated initials - a subject too complicated for a poor old Blogger - and later in the Soviet period overprinted from lithographic plates. I do not know if the plates were "double size" to print a sheet of 80 at one go, or arranged as 8 x 5 plates to print half the sheet - the latter seems much more likely.[ See Footnote] What is clear is that there was one plate to overprint the Fiscals with the Soviet Arms of Armenia and another to print the new value. This is clear from the examples below:

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The first image shows a strip of eight with selvedge at the right showing that it is from the left of the sheet. The Arms are printed low down in the upper half of the stamp but the value is in the middle of the bottom tablet (along with later Mss revaluations which turned Zakiyan # 16 into Zakiyan # 23). In the second image, what is probably a divided strip of eight shows the Arms a few millimeters higher than on the first strip but the value overprints still centrally placed. In other words, the two overprints are independent of each other from two plates.

Closer inspection shows that the form of the value "1 rf" varies from stamp to stamp. In principle, it is plateable and if a plate of 5 x 8 was used, then it should be relatively easy - a plate of 10 x 8 is going to be at least twice as hard!

The Arms must in theory be plateable but the density of the overprint makes it very difficult to attempt in practice. We don't know what the size of the transfer block might be (though Zakiyan suggests a single cliche). If I was going to attempt to plate the Arms (I'm not),then I would start with something relatively clear like the hammer and sickle and look for variation there. But it's possible that if a single cliche was used for the Arms, then all we will find is idiosyncratic variation from the way in which an individual sheet happened to be printed (from a re-inked plate or a dry plate and so on)

Meanwhile, the examples above show how Armenian documents of this period (1923) are often attractively franked with multiples of the same revenue stamp.

Footnote 28 April 2014: I have been looking at a large collection of documents with these Fiscals. Horizontal strips of 8 or broken strips of 8 are quite common. Frankings of more than 8 stamps also exist (the highest I have seen is 20), but in no cases are there any examples of cross - gutter [inter-panneau] pairs. This suggests that at point of use, the sheets of 80 were received in half sheets of 40. That is also a reason for thinking that the cutting in half was normally or always done as part of the printing operation using an 8 x 5 not 16 x 5 plate. A convincing [ genuine] example of a used cross-gutter pair would necessarily modify these claims

Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials: A Frustrating Variety

Some of the 1923 Yerevan pictorials - the first stamps to be printed in Armenia - are in two distinct colours. Others have a pale colour wash background in a colour similar to the dominant colour.

This is not an all-over wash - the background colour is patterned so that it does not print on parts of the main design: see the first stamp in the display above to see this clearly.

Specialist listings claim that stamps with "background colour omitted" exist. In my experience, it is a real problem to determine in a particular case whether the colour is omitted or not.

For example, on the 2000r the background is sometimes in a pale brown colour (think Cafe Latté)and this is easy enough to see - look at the top row of stamps and see how the background colour does not extend into the Star at the top or the "Z Z" on the shield at the bottom.

But sometimes the background colour is pale grey and it is sometimes hard to see - look at the stamps in the second row. If you thought the background should always be brown then you might think these stamps are without background. That is not so - look again and on the first three stamps in this second row you can see there is a background.

But the last stamp in this row, a mint copy on the right, could be without background - the design,the gum and the paper are combining to play tricks on the eye and I find myself changing my mind ...

In the bottom row is just one stamp which I think is without background.

But I find it so difficult to decide that I do not think I have ever sold a 2000r stamp as an example of "Missing Background".Unfortunately, unsurcharged copies of the stamp are scarce - there were no large stocks of mint remainders of this widely-used stamp. If we had a few large multiples, it would be much easier.

Armenia 1923 Yerevan Pictorials

Though the Michel catalogue has a generally good listing for Armenia, it breaks down for the last issue from the 1919 - 1923 period, the Yerevan pictorials listed as IVa to IVk in unoverprinted form and 171 - 180 for the issued, overprinted stamps.

Michel does not give separate listings for stamps overprinted with metal handstamps and those with rubber handstamps, nor does it distinguish overprint colours except in a footnote which values red overprints at a x 10 premium

Above I show the 1000 rouble stamp (Fisherman on Lake Sevan) with a 50 000 rouble metal overprint in black and then in violet (Top Row) and with a rubber handstamp in black, violet and red (Bottom Row). Chronologically, the rubber handstamps came into use first and you do not find mint remainder stocks for them as you do for the later metal handstamps.

In general, metal handstamps are normally found in black, occasionally (on some values) in violet and, to my knowledge, on only one value in red (the 200 000 handstamp). Dr Ceresa lists in his Handbook a Purple-Black and it is true that, quite often, on turning to the back of the stamp which looks black on the front one can see purple (or violet) pigments penetrating. But I am not sure that this variety can always be reliably distinguished.

When I first acquired from Dr Ceresa, about 20 years ago, his stock of Yerevan pictorial overprints, I tabulated the quantities with different colour overprints from the metal handstamps. I came across this listing, working today in my office, and it breaks down a total of 192 stamps as follows

139 stamps with Black overprints (many of these were from Mint remainder stocks)
30 definitely Purple-black (if in doubt, I assigned them to Black)
19 definitely Violet on just 3 of the ten values possible
4 definitely Red on just 1 value (the 200 000 handstamp - this red overprint may have been a philatelic late production)

For the rubber handstamp overprints, there is a different distribution. A total of 140 stamps broke down as follows:

81 stamps with Violet overprints
38 stamps with Red overprints
21 stamps with Black overprints

The 75 000 rouble handstamp, applied to the 3 000 rouble stamp, only exists in the metal version; there is no rubber handstamp for this value. It is probable that not all values can be found with Red or Black rubber overprints, but all (except the 75 000 just mentioned) can be found with Violet.

It follows that a "basic" collection of metal handstamps will show all 10 values in Black and a "basic" collection of rubber handstamps will show all 9 values in Violet.

An "advanced" collection will contain spaces where it is uncertain whether a particular value can or cannot be found with a particular colour overprint and in both mint and used condition.

Armenia 1922 Second Yessayan stamps: a short guide

This set of eight values, each value printed in either red (rose) or slate (grey) was prepared in Constantinople by the (Y)essayan printing works. There are three Yessayan printings and one Forgery of the series:

1. ORIGINAL Printing. Yessayan printed each value on a separate sheet (i.e., normally). As far as I know, no complete sheets now exist and the largest multiples are probably no larger than twenty or thirty stamps. Three values were not issued at all, and the other five values were only issued with surcharges. The values which were not surcharged are scarce and the issued values are rare without surcharge. There is some colour variation in this Original printing and for the grey stamps, there are two distinct papers - though it seems that only some values can be found with both papers. All the stamps were gummed and the gumming is the same as that found on First Yessayan stamps: done with a machine and with a clear gum stop at the sheet edges.

2. FIRST Reprint. Yessayan prepared these for the stamp trade. None were sent to Yerevan and none can exist with genuine surcharges: a surcharge on a Reprint is ALWAYS a forgery.

To economise on lithographic plates, Yessayan RESET the eight values onto just two plates of unequal size. These two plates yield 147 stamps in total providing stamp dealers with 18 sets and 3 spare stamps .... Most sheets were cut up for the packet trade and se-tenant multiples are rarely seen. The paper is always white. About half the sheets were not gummed, and the other half are with white gum which has a different appearance to that used on the Originals.

A pair of First Reprint sheets are in the April 2012 Corinphila auction (Lot 1764). They are from me.

3. SECOND Reprint.. Again to supply the stamp trade, Yessayan made a Second Reprint (probably a couple of years after the First)and this time used just one plate for all values. There are 74 stamps on this plate, yielding 9 sets and 2 spare stamps ... Most of the sheets were cut up for the packet trade and se-tenant multiples are rarely seen. None were sent to Yerevan and a surcharge on a Second reprint stamp is ALWAYS a forgery.

This second reset plate shows the stamps with worn impressions - there are more white areas. The colour of the stamps looks pale in comparison to the First reprint but actually the colours are very similar - it is just the extra white areas which make the stamps look pale.The paper is again white. It seems that most of the sheets were gummed. The gum is yellowish and gives the paper a yellowish appearance.

4. The Forgery. There appears to be only one Forgery type. The designs are crude, the paper grey, and the gum thick and yellow. The Forgeries copy the Reprints: the different values are printed se-tenant, but I do not know if one or two plates were used.Examples can be found with the gum washed off and from these copies you can see that the paper is normally grey and coarse. For some reason, red Forgeries appear to be scarcer than grey forgeries.

The consequence of this printing history is that a complete collection of this issue WITHOUT SURCHARGES - excluding shade, paper and gum varieties and se-tenant groups comprises 16 Originals, 16 First Reprints, 16 Second Reprints, 16 Forgeries ...

The listing of surcharged stamps in the Michel catalogue is good, but the pricing of the unsurcharged stamps is not sensible.

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(Note: the used copy of the red stamp about has a Georgian arrival cancellation at top)

Armenia 1922 Second Yessayan stamps

For the serious Armenia collector this torn scrap is a rich source of information.

Here is one of the scarcer Second Yessayan stamps showing the broad "4" overprint. The letter was posted at KARAKLIS ERIVAN "a" 23 6 22. The cancellation shows typical ink and clear strikes of features which forgers often get wrong.

But Karaklis was using old Imperial Registration labels of ERIVAN at this time, modified in violet ink to "Karaklis" (in Cyrillic).

The cover went first to Alexandropol and received an ALEXANDROPOL "zhe" 24 6 22 cancellation. This cancel is genuine and because the "zhe" is struck on the white margin of the stamp you can see that it is the genuine cancellatioon and not one of the fakes you will find at various points in the ARTAR catalog (see my previous Blogs on this subject)

The envelope was then forwarded to a People's Court in Yerevan - see the bright violet endorsement - and was received at ERIVAN "b" 29 6 22: the strike shows clearly the Cyrillic "b" serial which most forgeries get wrong (go again to the ARTAR catalog)

If I was better at reading Cyrillic there is more information to be extracted from this item - and if more collectors bought items like this, they would be less likely to end up paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars and euros for the fake items which appear regularly, even in serious auctions

Armenia: Turning Base Metal into Gold

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This is what happens when you buy Armenia without looking carefully!

At a show, I bought a small batch of used First Yessayan stamps. I checked the overprints and the cancellations on the stamps and they all looked OK. So I bought the stamps.

Later, when I looked more closely, I realised that several of the stamps overlapped on pieces, too many for coincidence. In addition, the brown paper on which they were stuck did not look right - it was old but not a type I had seen for 1920s Armenia. Some single stamps on this brown paper also did not look quite right.

So I scanned them all and this immediately showed that in all cases the parts of the cancellations on the brown paper were faked - they were drawn in by hand.

So why would you stick genuine stamps on bits of paper and fake a cancellation? My guess meant that I had to soak the stamps off the paper to find out.

The answer is shown on the right hand illustrations: the overlapping allowed someone to hide damaged stamps. See the top two rows on the right.

Using a paper backing also disguised damage and repair work on the two single stamps at the bottom.

Bottom right, the "3" on 20 000, the stamp was badly thinned and torn but this was hidden by backing it with a piece of sheet margin from some Imperial Russian sheet with lozenges and then putting the stamp onto the brown backing.

The stamp bottom left also revealed some labour-intensive work: at the top you can see that the perforations are not quite aligned. This is because the whole top right corner has been inserted from another stamp to repair damage to the main stamp.

Buyer beware!