Russia, RSFSR Inflation covers

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Inflation covers are popular with collectors and would be more popular if there was not one problem: a large proportion of inflation covers are not complete. At some point, a dealer or collector has decided to remove a stamp - just one - or maybe a block of four needed for an album page. Sometimes it is not immediately obvious from where the stamps / s have been removed.

So buying inflation covers is a time-consuming business; you have to check each one.

The cover above is complete. It was Registered from VOLOCHISK ZHEL DOR P. O. - Volochisk Railway Post Office and addressed to Dr Brender in Berlin. There is a Berlin 47 receiver cancel for 20 11 22 - you can see it towards the top of the image in the middle. The Volochisk cancels are weakly struck and even though there are about 300 of them, I hesitate to identify the day in November when this letter was sent.

It is franked correctly at 300 roubles, the Foreign Registered tariff introduced on 3 November 1922. 

The franking is provided by six complete sheets of 1 rouble imperforate Imperial Arms stamps, each sheet comprising 50 stamps.

I suspect the addition of all these stamps to the envelope would have actually taken the letter into the second or third weight step and I sometimes wonder if there were clerks who tried then to charge additional weight step postage for the postage stamps they had stuck on the envelope and so on ad infinitum.

The cover above nicely illustrates just how disruptive inflation could be at the post office counter when not matched by appropriate stamp supplies. Three hundred stamps are used up here, each sheet laboriously attached to the envelope and each stamp separately cancelled. In addition, there must have been temptation at times for postal workers to steal such exotic looking covers in transit.

Somewhere someone must have recorded what is believed to be the largest number of adhesives attached to a single RSFSR cover of the 1917 - 23 period. Can anyone tell us what it is?

Russian Alaska

The area we know as Alaska was claimed by Imperial Russia in 1741 and rented out to the Russia-America Company in 1799 which then managed it, an arrangement similar to the way that some British colonial territories were managed by private companies. In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the USA.

For some collectors, mail from or to Russian Alaska is a Holy Grail. Back in 1960, Tchilingirian and Stephen devoted two pages to "Russian America" in Part Six of their Stamps of the Russian Empire Used Abroad. At the end of their two pages, they write "no material known so far"(page 496).

Nowadays, the Internet makes it easy to establish that letters from Russian Alaska exist, notably in museums and archives in Finland, since Finns were very active among the sailors, traders and adventurers who made their way to Alaska. But I do not know if anyone has studied the letters for postal markings - if the letters were entire letters then they would be addressed and probably show some markings. The letters are referred to in historical studies of the colonisation of Alaska.

However, a new development has now occurred. An 1851 entire letter from Alaska to Finland has appeared in auction, and was sold by the Swedish firm Philea on 10 April 2016 for  15 500 euro hammer ( on 3000 euro Starting Price). The letter is undoubtedly genuine and here it is:

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The letter is written in German (or possibly some mix of Swedish and German - it is hard for me to read) and the writer is Henrik Johan Holmberg (1818 - 1864), a Finnish naturalist, geologist and ethnographer who is known to have travelled to Alaska in 1850. He is writing from New Archangel [Novo Archangelsk] also known as Sitka even then - see the heading to the letter - on 1 May 1851.

It is known that the Russia-America Company's ships departed to Alaska from Kronstadt and returned there. The routes varied, but late April / early May appears to have been a period at which ships departed Alaska for the five or six month journey to Russia. Weather would have been the major factor in deciding sailing dates, both ways.

The letter is addressed to Anders Olivier Saelan (1818 - 1874) in Helsingfors. Holmberg and Saelan were born in the same year and my guess is that they went to school together. Saelan was a pioneer of technical education in Finland. Note that the address is written first in Cyrillic and then in Roman.

My guess is that this letter travelled on a Russia-America company ship headed for Kronstadt, where the letter was either put into the Imperial Post or transferred as just one in a bag of letters to St Petersburg, where the bag was opened for sorting and cancelled on 19 September 1851.

There are two rate markings: a "10" on the front and a "60" on the reverse. These appear to be written in the same hand with the same pen. I invite experts on the matter to interpret these markings.

There is one other marking on the letter in a different (blacker) ink and hand, "No. 514" underlined in the top right corner. My theory is this:

Registry markings for Imperial Russian official mail take the same form, but normally are at bottom left of letters from this and later periods. Alaska, of course, was not under Imperial administration but systems may have been similar. I do think the "No. 514" is a Registry mark and I put forward the hypothesis that it was applied in Alaska for one of two reasons: either to indicate that it was an item of Russia-America company mail or for more general book-keeping purposes related to the fact that mail could have been handed in at the company offices at any time but would have to sit there and wait for a ship that could take it away -and such ships probably only departed a few times a year, or even less than that. The "No. 514" could function to indicate (for example) that Holmberg had paid the fee for carriage of his private letter, since to the best of my Internet-based knowledge, he was not a company employee. 

1851 Entire Letter from Novo Archangelsk, Alaska to Helsingfors with transit cancellation of St Petersburg, very very rare and a bargain at its hammer price of 15 500 euro.

Imperial Russia 2 kopeck - a Bogus Essay?

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There is always something on my desk (or on the floor) waiting for an appointment. Sometimes, I keep putting it off. Today I finally tried to assess the perforated stamp in the white packet. I think the answer is this: the stamp has been cut from an Imperial 2 kopeck banderole, like the one shown underneath the stamp. The brownish wove paper, without gum, is similar if not identical. The design of the stamp is identical. Then it has been perforated, though not very successfully - it looks as if scissors have been used to remove surrounding paper. Then it was probably - sometime, somewhere - offered for sale as an  Essay for an Imperial stamp or as an unissued stamp. I can't think of any other explanation. The stamp has not been stored so well as the banderole, which explains the colour differences

Has anyone got a better ( = true) story?

By the way, this is not my April Fool's Day joke :) 

Sovietisation 1920 - 1921: Examples from Ukraine and Georgia

The end of the Civil War in Russia is usually dated to November - December 1920 and the evacuation of General Wrangel's Army from the Crimea. But Sovietisation of areas previously controlled by White forces or independent governments began before then and continued afterwards. The Baltics, Finland and Poland remained outside of Soviet rule but to the East, no part of former Imperial Russia was not Sovietised. Indeed, some new areas were added if you count Mongolia and Tannu Tuva and the full absorption of Bukhara and Khiva. The period of Sovietisation and re-Sovietisation certainly lasts until the creation of the USSR at the beginning of 1924.

The intervening years 1920 - 1923 are messy with national and regional differences in government persisting, sometimes reflecting greater or lesser willingness of local populations to accept Bolshevik rule and with it subordination of some kind to Moscow. In addition, economies had collapsed, people had starved, many had gone into exile.

Mail from this 1920 - 23 period outside the core RSFSR often reflects the difficulties of transition to Soviet rule

Here are two examples that I have recently acquired.

The first is a Registered cover sent from VINNITSA ZABUSHE POD[olia] 17 3 20 and addressed to Petrograd with PETROGRAD 3 4 20 receiver on front at top right and a Petrograd 6th Expeditisa cancel in red on the reverse. At the left on the front are the remains of a SPRAVKA form: the letter could not be delivered and arrived back in Vinnitsa on 19 4 20. This is just prior to what would become the Polish Occupation of Podolia during the Russo-Polish War of 1920

The 10 rouble franking with Imperial Arms stamps overprinted with Podilia type 1a Tridents is interesting: it is the correct RSFSR Tariff introduced in Mocow and Petrograd on 10 March 1920 but often delayed elsewhere  because of lack of notification. Here the Notification has clearly arrived. When the collector and dealer pencil scribbles are removed from the cover, this will be a very nice item

There are two puzzling marks on the front of the cover at bottom right: a small violet circular cachet with a number inside and a blue circular seal. It is this kind of thing which adds to the difficulty of understanding mail from this 1920 - 23 period. I rely on readers to provide information about them:

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The second cover dates from much later in October 1921 and was sent from what I read as DRAND[a] SUKHUMSK O[blast]  19 10 21 in recently-Sovietised Georgia. It is addressed to Finland with three HELSINKI HELSINGFORS cancels on the back but with unclear dates. The letter transited through MOSKVA  and PETROGRAD in November 1921 with a violet Three Triangle censor of PETROGRAD 12 11 21. As I read the dates, it looks to me as if this cover was shuttled between Petrograd and Moscow  before delivery. I cannot identify the roller cancel.

What is most interesting is that the letter was paid in cash. There is a Postmaster's endorsement on the back flap. It looks as if he first of all thought this was going to be a Registered letter at 1000 roubles and then had to correct the 1 to a zero when he realised it was an ordinary letter, thus yielding the odd-looking 0500 rub. The word ZAKAZNOE [Registered] at top left on the front is indeed crossed out with the postmaster's violet ink pen.

Neither 500 or 1000 corresponds to an RSFSR Tariff so I have to assume that this is a specifically Georgian Tariff. I await further clarification from readers.

Added 25 February: Alexander Epstein writes to me that this cover is sent from Abkhazia during a period (March - December 1921) when it was Sovietised but virtually independent of Georgia. Later it was federated with  Georgia. Georgian mail in 1921 is very scarce (as Dr Ceresa has also observed), but Epstein says that this is the only 1921 Abkhasian item that he has seen:

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Armenia First Yessayan Used Without Overprints

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The series of Armenian stamps known as "First Yessayan" were only issued in 1922 - 23 with overprints. However, since the overprints were all applied with single handstamps or in manuscript, it is inevitable that some stamps got missed. One should expect to find the occasional used stamp without an overprint.

In addition, both the Gibbons catalogue (following Tchilingirian and Ashford) and the Michel catalogue (following Zakiyan and Saltykov) list deliberate use of two values without surcharge.

Gibbons says that the 250 rouble perforated stamp was used without Manuscript surcharge " 1 k" ( in red or violet) at three post offices in March - May 1923. It lists those post offices as Delizhan, Karaklis and Keshikend.

Above are three used examples of the 250 r perforated stamp. Stefan Berger has studied all three of them with his microscope, telescope and goodness knows what else and can find no visible trace of a surcharge. The third stamp above has a readable ALEXANDROPOL cancel and I think the other two are also with Alexadropol cancels - the similarities are obvious. The first stamp in the row has an Agathon Faberge acquisition note from 1927, the second a MAISON ROMEKO mark. All three seem genuine in all respects to me and to Stefan Berger. So it looks like that at Alexandropol they also used this stamp without surcharge and probably deliberately since here we have three examples, not just a random one from a missed surcharge.

Michel says that the 25 rouble ( unspecified whether perforated or imperforate or both) which was later surcharged as a 4 kopeck stamp was also issued unsurcharged for use as a 1500 rouble stamp in the period January - May 1922. [This paragraph rewritten on the basis of a Comment from Alexander Epstein ] 

Anyway, the 25 rouble shown above with ERIVAN cancel of November 1922 does not appear to have any regular 4 kop surcharge. However, and just to complicate matters, there is a small violet ink mark under the day of the date line in the cancellation. This could either be randon or it could be a squiggle representing a number "4". Maybe this is a stamp from which the regular surcharge was accidentally omitted and a clerk made a manuscript correction. In the absence of other examples, who knows? All that is clear is that this stamp also lacks a regular surcharge. 

RSFSR: Franked Mail in the Free Frank Period

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Most stamp dealers know that Registered postcards are unusual items from more or less any country. Maybe you only Register a postcard if you are worried about the reliability of your postal service or because your postcard contains some very important Secret Coded Message ...

Anyway, dealers know enough to put the price up for a registered postcard, even one as unattractive as this (the picture side is just a photo of a painting in the Hermitage gallery) and for which I paid £35 (50 €) when I found it in another dealer's box. I didn't ask for a discount.

I don't know how much I would have paid to get it because I have never seen one before (unless I saw one and failed to appreciate what it was ...). 

What I illustrate here is a postcard from Bolshevik Russia during the Free Frank period  1919 - 21 when ordinary (non-registered) cards and letters travelled free. Not many travelled - this was the period of War Communism when the Bolsheviks were in a desperate situation with control over only part of the territory of "core" Russia. Even less Registered mail travelled.

Registered mail still had to be franked and the 35 kopeck paid on this 12 May 1919 card from Kozlov to Petrograd (the receiver cancel in red) represents 10 kopecks for postage ( suppressed for an ordinary card) and 25 kopecks for Registration. That was the Tariff set on 1st January 1919 when the Free Post was introduced. 

This card will join an accumulation of 1919 - 21 Franked Mail - all covers - which I have been keeping back to study and write up. That accumulation extends to about 50 items; this is the first Registered postcard. Of additional interest is the Kozlov registration in a smudged printing on a poor quality paper which I think is a War Time economy (or even post - revolutionary ) production. I have seen similar labels from other places.

How much is it worth? That is actually unknown until some early Bolshevik Russia collection appears at a serious auction and serious collectors have to think about what they will pay for things they are lacking and may never even have seen before. At the moment, there is no obvious market in such things. If I was working for an auction house (as I occasionally do ) and obliged to put a Start price on the card above I would Start it at 150 € and would be disappointed to see it sell for less than 300 €. If it went for 1000 € I would think that showed at least two collectors in the world clearly understood what they were competing for.

Added 22 January: Alexander Epstein kindly supplies examples of Registered postcards franked at each of the three Tariffs of the 1919 - 21 "Free Post" period: 35 kopecks, 4 roubles and 10 roubles. The last two show cards franked with kopeck stamps revalued x 100. Note that on the first card, the uprated "10" overprint counts towards the franking; the next three cards are used as Blanks (correctly so - statoneries were invalidated on 1 January 1919); the last card is a Ukrainian formular card. Epstein writes that it took him many,many years to find them. They are indeed rarities and I guess this is now the largest group shown on the Internet:

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Added 3 February 2016: Dr Hans Grigoleit sends me scans of the remarkable cover and card below. Azerbaijan also operated a Free Post system in 1920 - 1921.These items  illustrate the continuing use of Musavat stamps in the early Soviet period:

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Added 3 February 2016: Alexander Epstein now contributes a postcard and a cover from Azerbaijan for the 1920 - 21 Free Post period, both are rare items:

Added 7 February 2016: Robert Taylor contributes this nice Esperanto registered postcard from Petrograd to Switzerland, sent late in the Free Post period (May 1921; Free Post ended in August). Like many items mailed abroad at this period, it is franked at the Inland rate of 10 roubles not the advertised Foreign rate which at this date would have been 7 or 14 roubles.

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Collecting the Uncollectable: Russian Tobacco, Cigarette and Cigar Strips (Banderoles)

Some things which are collectable are very rare for a simple reason. Before they became collectables, they were things which people threw away or recycled into something else. That is true, for example,of the tax bands which in the past (and even to this day) were wrapped around boxes of cigars or packets of tobacco. Even the history of these tax bands is rather uncertain - in some cases, so few exist that it is unlikely that we have the complete picture unless it can be found in a printer's archive.

For Imperial Russia, dated tax bands used on tobacco products can be found with dates as early as 1848 - one is illustrated in John Barefoot's Russian Revenues at page 14. On the Internet, I can find nothing that early and - indeed, very little at all. I am fairly confident that the two items I am going to illustrate now are rarities of their kind:

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My scanner will not take these unfolded so I only show part of two strips measuring 49cm and 51 cm long. I think both are complete or nearly so. One is dated 1855 and is a 50 kopeck tax band for 100 second sort (grade) imported cigars. The other dated 1857 is a 45 kopeck band for 100 second sort (grade) imported rolled cigars.

I could sell you these strips but I would have to tell you two things: first, that I doubt you will find any more this year or next year; second, that I hope you realise these things don't fit your album.

Tobacco strips are one of those things strictly incompatible with One Size Fits All collecting. These strips have been folded several times in their history and I have just unfolded them from the album pages on which they were hinged. It's a miracle that worse has not happened to them: they have never been cut up.

What you should really do if you want to collect things like this is simple: go to a very specialist art shop and buy an extra-large format sketch book or photographic album. If you can't find one in the shop, then find a company which will make one for you. Yes, it will be expensive. But then it is going to house things which exist in very small numbers. I can confidently say this: I will publish images here of  any identical strips to these which are sent to me. I would not say that for Russia's first 1858 stamp nor for Russia #3 or Russia #4 - there are just too many existing and I would get too many images sent me!

I am tempted to go out and buy that large album myself. But at the same time I would have to turn myself into a Paper Conservation expert, carefully removing hinges from these banderoles, smoothing or flattening them. It would be absorbing work - but a lot of work since I now have well over 100 of these strips from the pre - 1917 period - not all of them as rare as these two, of course. 

Postscript added 15 January 2016: Coincidence! John McMahon has an excellent article on the Tobacco Tax banderoles in the latest Rossica, Fall 2015; it is fully illustrated. He also scans me this 1855 Banderole in the same style as those illustrated above, though this one is for First Grade Cigars rather than my Second Grade:

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