Documents of the Russian Refugee Post: Essayan and Sredinsky

The stamps of the Russian Refugee Post in Constantinople 1920 - 1921 never saw genuine use. That is not to say that the originators of the stamp issues did not want to see them used. They did take elaborate measures to prove the authenticity of the stamp issues and some postal use would have added to the sense of authenticity.

Below I reproduce two documents. The simpler one in French records the printer Essayan's agreement to produce the second series of Refugee Post stamps in exchange for the right to retain 2% of the stamps overprinted, proportional to the number printed of each combination of stamp and overprint. Refugee Post postmaster Sredinsky (later the stamp dealer Thals in Paris) has counter-signed.

This document is reproduced from a photograph of the original, not a photocopy, so it probably dates back many years. It was in a collection written up in French on English Frank Godden leaves. I would guess 1940s or 1950s for the date of the photograph.

The second document over two sides and in Russian records the agreement made by Essayan to print the first series of Refugee Post stamps. This contract is dated 11 December 1920 and is signed first by Essayan and counter-signed by Sredinssky and at the end they both confirm that the contract has been fulfilled with Essayan retaining 10% of the printing.

Like the previous document, this one is scanned from a photograph originally attached to an album page written up in French. Whatever the status of the Refugee Post stamps, these images do give us examples of the handwriting of Essayan and Sredinsky, and evidence of their fluency in both Russian and French.

Click on Image to Magnify

Click on Images to Magnify

Armenia First Yessayan 1922 Pictorials

Click on Image to Magnify

On his website, www.stampsofarmenia.com, Stefan Berger recently posted a piece about the First Yessayan pictorial stamps of Armenia: http://stampsofarmenia.com/?p=1432

This made me look at my own holdings. Recently, I added a dozen examples of stamps printed on both sides of the paper - these were in the Peter Ashford collection. I was not very interested in them. But when I scanned them, I noticed a surprising feature: all the stamps printed on both sides are from very early states of the lithographic printing plate. You can see this if you enlarge the image above - the Both Sides stamps are on the left. The designs are sharp and clean.

The stamps are on thin ungummed paper. There are two possibilities: these stamps are Makulatur produced by Yessayan for the stamp trade; or they are Trial prints which economise on paper by using both sides.

The Transcaucasia Collection of Peter Ashford, 1

The Transcaucasia collection of the late Peter Ashford (P.T.Ashford,  1925 - 2010) was recently sold at auction in England. It was not a very large or very impressive collection, but it had been assembled over 50 years - beginning in the 1950s - and did include many items of interest.

Ashford is best known as the author of several important philatelic works: on Batum, Georgia, the Transcaucasian Railway, the cancellations used in Transcaucasia during the Imperial period, and in collaboration with Tchilingirian, a pioneering work on the stamps of independent Armenia. Many of these works date back to the 1950s and Ashford's collection contained a great deal of material used in writing the books.

I will publish some examples of material in the collection in my next few Blogs, concentrating on items which  which I have not seen illustrated elsewhere or which are interesting and unusual.

In Part Four of The Postage Stamps of Armenia (published 1960) Tchilingirian and Ashford (T & A) discuss the Soviet Pictorial issues of 1920 - 1923. For the First Yessayan pictorials they list "Artist's Proofs" and describe them as follows:

imperforate, on same paper as the issued stamps, except the 5,000 r., which is on a toned paper  looking brown ... Usually without gum, although a few values are exceptionally met with gum. A few sheets of each value were printed in varying shades of grey-black to black for presentation to designer S.Khachaturian, and were later split up by him in smaller blocks or singles, and disposed of on the market (page 194)

This story is consistent with the story Christopher Zakiyan tells about another issue, the First Star Set of 1921. As I noted in a previous Blog about that issue, the new Soviet government of Armenia in effect funded a trip by Khachaturian to Constantinople by supplying him with a small quantity of First Star overprints which he was allowed to sell there. Giving him some Proofs to sell as a way of paying for his more important work and foreign travels during the preparation of the First Yessayan set must have been an economical choice for the new Soviet Armenian government which had very little money to spend on anything. (As an aside, after 1991 the new Armenian government appears to have distributed New Issues via its new Embassies as a way of raising funds in local currency).

Though T&A report "a few sheets of each value", these Artist's Proofs seem to be rarer than that description suggests; I don't think I have seen them before I acquired this group - not a complete set - in the Ashford collection. Click on the Image to magnify:

  

Armenia Second Yessayan Pictorials: For Sale

This Blog isn't a shop but today I am going to say I have something for sale. 

The 1921 /22 Second Yessayan [Famine Relief] pictorials were printed in Constantinople, sent to Yerevan, and issued with surcharges. Unsurcharged copies are normally only found for the values which were not issued at all.

To meet demand for the stamps, Reprints were produced (probably unofficially) by the printer of the original stamps, V M Yessayan. He made two sets of Reprints. The Original stamps had been produced, as normally, one value per sheet. For the First Reprint, Yessayan economised on his lithographic plates by resetting all values onto two sheets - maybe they were one large printer's sheet originally. Each value is printed 18 times, except for the 5000 rouble which has 21 impressions. So there are 147 stamps in total, printed on white paper which is ungummed about 50% of the time and otherwise with a white gum

For the Second Reprints, Yessayan put everything onto one sheet. The sheets are always gummed and the gum is yellow.

I have one set of First Reprint sheets, partly illustrated above - my scanner cannot accommodate the whole sheets. I could cut 18 sets of 8  from these sheets - which is what packet makers did in the 1920s and 1930s -  and I would sell a set for 80 euros (10 euro each fresh never hinged - ungummed - stamp). So the potential total for 18 sets is 1440 euros.  But I don't want to cut these sheets which, for example, show a se-tenant arrangement not found in the Originals and which changes again for the Second Reprints. Are they of interest to anyone as they are?

The "Constantinople Group" : making philatelic products in the 1920s

Since they are all dead, it ought to be possible now to write some kind of honest account of the doings of a group of stamp dealers, collectors, entrepreneurs and crooks who found themselves together in Constantinople in 1920 - 22/23, did a lot of stuff together, and who thereafter went their separate ways.

Who were these people and what did they get up to? In no particular order and with no proof that they were all in it together (probably they weren't):

V.M.(Y)essayan, the head of the Essayan Printing Works, who managed both to overprint the stamps of the [White] Russian Refugee Post and print the first stamps of Soviet Armenia [First and Second Yessayan] and who along the way probably printed the Levant ship fantasies (which are on paper and with gum similar to those used for the Armenian stamps). He also supplied the stamp trade with unofficial reprints and (probably)unofficial colour trials, proofs etc of the Soviet Armenian stamps. Not bad for an Armenian working in Turkish Constantinople!

Captain Sredinsky, "Postmaster" of the Russian Refugee Post from the time of Wrangel's evacuation of Crimea at the end of 1920 until his migration to Paris and his re-emergence as the stamp dealer THALS.

Serge Rockling (1893 - 1975), who probably left Tbilisi in late 1920 or early 1921 before the Bolsheviks arrived, had a hand in the National Guard and De Jure overprints of Georgia, may have had a hand in the Georgian Consular overprints of 1921, and who is best known as head of the (highly reputable) Paris stamp dealers, MAISON ROMEKO

Souren Serebrakian (1900 - 1990), born in Tiflis, who found himself in Yerevan in 1920, filled his suitcases with Armenian stamps, left in August or September 1920, and made his way via Batum, Constantinople, Leipzig, the Netherlands and Brussels to New York where he traded stamps until his death and left a vast stock auctioned a few years ago by Cherrystone. Probably had a hand in the Georgian Consular overprints of January 1921.

? ? Samuel Gueron, a Constantinople stamp dealer responsible for the rather good "Gueron forgeries" of Katerynoslav Type II Tridents.

? ? A.M. Rosselevich, an accomplished draftsman who in later life designed the 1957 Rossica society souvenir sheets and vignettes celebrating the hundreth anniversary of Russia #1, and who I have been told (orally) was in Constantinople at the time I am writing about. In later life, expertised stamps using the handstamp ROSS.

? ? Paul Melik-Pachaiv may not have made it to Constantinople. The Bolsheviks imprisoned this philatelic speculator who dominated the production of Armenian stamps after Serebrakian left, and as a result of his imprisonment he may have left later and by another route. But, curiously, in 1923 he can be found in Leipzig - a city also on Serebrakian's migration route, so I have added his name here just in case there is more to the story than we know about.

If this Blog has older readers, they may be able to continue the story.... It is one worth researching.

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.

______________

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

Armenia 1921 First Yessayan: Quantity and Quality

Collectors who exhibit in order to win medals have to search for Quality and that usually means rare stamps and rare covers.

This may be one reason why basic philatelic research is sometimes neglected. Old fashioned research almost inevitably involves accumulating in quantity - just to see what's out there and to classify and evaluate it.

Soviet Armenia's first set of pictorials consists of 17 values, prepared imperforate and perforated (Michel II a - s). That's 34 stamps to kick off, to which has to be added Proofs and Colour Trials.

Only some stamps were issued and always with handstamped or handwritten surcharges in a variety of styles and in two colours (black and red). Collect one of each and you are heading towards a hundred stamps.

To deal in this issue, one of my "Specialities", I look at my shelves and realise that over the years I have accumulated five large stockbooks:

1. Genuine stamps from the Original printing carried out at the [Y]essayan Printing Works in Constantinople. A very unbalanced stockbook now. Perforated stamps are generally scarcer and the 25 000 in brown perforated is rare. I don't have one but I have hundreds of others in this book.

2. Genuine overprints, which have to be on stamps of the Original printing, in red and black. Red are generally scarcer (except for the 1 on 1) but some black surcharges are very scarce - the 35 on 20 000 and the 3 on 20 000, for example. There are varieties not listed in Michel (you will find them in Zakiyan). None of them are philatelic - the Armenian Bolsheviks has no time for stamp dealers, and even imprisoned one of them (Melik - Pacher / Pachaev).

3. The common Forgery on bright, brittle paper with shiny gum. So common that they are sometimes classed as Reprints, but actually they just don't seem like Yessayan's work especially if you compare with the Reprints he undoubtedly did make of the Second Yessayan series. A very fat stockbook of little value, but with annoying gaps. You would expect the numbers to be more equally distributed than they are in this bulging stockbook, worth no more than a couple of hundred (pounds, euros, dollars).

4. The scarcer forgeries, of which there are at least two types, on paper and sometimes with gum much closer to the Originals but with much poorer quality printing. Much less common, though I picked up an old Italian dealer's stock of them years ago, including part sheets which you rarely see because most were cut up to fill packets.

5. Forged overprints, generally on forged stamps but sometimes on genuine stamps - and these are usually good ones. Blue-black ink instead of black ink is a common feature of these well-executed forgeries which are often seen in auctions. An interesting stockbook which has involved me in many hours work: assessing "1" and "3" overprints on genuine basic stamps is not easy! An interesting book, yes, but - of course - of virtually no retail value.

In all the many years I have accumulated and traded from this stock, NO collector has ever approached me saying, "I want to research this issue. Have you got a big accumulation that I could study? I'll take thousands if you have got them".

Stefan Berger in Germany ( www.stampsofarmenia.com ) has got his own accumulation, but whether there is anyone else out there with enough stamps to really assess this issue in all its aspects, I don't know. Anyone?