After the creation of the
Soviet Union, all stamp issues previously in use were quite rapidly withdrawn
from sale. Imperial stamps at last disappeared, except when overprinted as
Philatelic Exchange stamps, and so too did the issues of the Far Eastern
Republic, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian republics. At the same time, the
Soviet Philatelic Association (SPhA) was attempting - with some success - to
establish itself as a commercially important entity, able to generate foreign
exchange from stamp sales, but also able to control private philatelic
speculation through the use of philatelic exchange controls.
In both contexts, the
SPhA sought to centralise all the remainder stamp stocks and associated
material which were scattered across the Soviet Union. I think there were just
three centres: Moscow, Kharkiv and Baku – though over time I think everything
gravitated to Moscow. According to C Zakiyan and S.Saltikov in their 1988 book Post and Postage Stamps of Armenia, a
Soviet delegation arrived in Yerevan in September 1924 and took away some of the
handstamps used in the period 1919 – 23 and still lying around in the post
office. I have no doubt that they also organised the transfer to Baku and/or
Moscow of very large quantities of remaindered stamps and that they did the
same when they visited Tbilisi. The SPhA outpost in Baku was manned by
S.Kusovkin who owed his appointment directly to Chuchin (I once owned the
appointment letter ex the Voikhansky collection). Kusovkin is known to have
organised the AzVoka reprints of Azerbaijan overprinted stamps, taking the
opportunity to create new varieties from the old handstamps and it’s therefore possible
that he did the same if he was entrusted with any Armenian handstamps.
There has, for example,
long been a suspicion that the SPhA created varieties of overprint colour on
the 1923 Yerevan pictorial issue. It does seem that though some values of this set acquired red overprints from the rubber handstamps in Yerevan which then
went into normal postal use not all
values were overprinted in red. It does seem that if for no other reason than
to please those who like things in Sets, the SPhA did fill in the missing
combinations of value + red, but in very small quantities so that they are
rare. The alternative explanation is that those overprints were created in
Yerevan as trials or proofs and not put into use so that they were all
available for transfer to Baku or Moscow in nice MNH ** condition. Either way,
there is a small group of value + red rubber handstamp combinations which did not see postal
use.
Added 30 June 2017 from Alexander Epstein:
Added 30 June 2017 from Alexander Epstein:
I would like adding to your blog as to the SPhA machinations
something more concerning the rubber surcharges on the Armenia last
definitives.
I visited Moscow as early as 1951 when one still
could purchase some Transcaucasian overprinted stamps through the State shops. I
bought there some rubber surcharged stamps of the Yerevan issue - all in some
black-violet or violet black colour, although the catalogs list only pure
violet or red surcharges. I have never seen used copies of stamps with rubber handstamp surcharges in these black-violet shades.
Several decades later, I learned from a very knowledgeable
old collector that those were actually reprints made by the
SPhA. Thus, one more confirmation!
Centralisation put
the SPhA in a strong commercial position but, as far as both domestic and especially,
foreign sales were concerned, catalogues of what was in stock were also needed.
These were duly provided under the editorship of the energetic F.Chuchin and
those catalogues continue to have an influence since the 1920s holdings of the SPhA
provided the largest assembly of many Russian stamp issues, especially those of
the Civil War period.
But were the catalogues
reliable? The SPhA certainly had qualified philatelists on its staff who knew
how to go about things and, for example, the clearly understood a great deal
about the 1920 Postmaster Provisionals which they catalogued. But I think there
were also temptations which were created by the fact that the SPhA had also
acquired at least some handstamps which had been used to create overprinted
issues and this I have already suggested in relation to the work of
Kusovkin in Baku.
This is one reason why
it is extremely difficult to make sense of what happened in the Armenian post
office in 1921. For most of that year, letters were paid for in cash (not that
there were many) – a claim for which Zakiyan and Saltikov found archival evidence.
At the same time, various trials were going on in the back room aiming to turn
the very large stamp stock (about two million stamps) inherited by the new
Bolshevik regime into properly Sovietised issues. These trials were messy,
improvised and inconclusive. At the end of the day, there was an awful lot of
material put in a cupboard and just 200 sets of 10 stamps handed over to S
Khatchaturian and G.Babaian to see what they could sell them for in Constantinople,
where the young painter Khatchaturian (1886 – 1947) would also have
chance to discuss with the printer his stamp designs for the forthcoming First
and Second Yessayan issues - stamps which would provide a decisive break with the past
of messy overprinting.
We only have a sketchy
idea of what those 200 sets of 10 looked like because we somehow have to locate
them behind a much longer listing in the 1926 Chuchin catalogue and an even
longer one in 1960 Tchilingirian and Ashford. Basically, the set of 10 has got
submerged into all that went into the cupboard in Yerevan and – possibly - all that Kusovkin or the Moscow SPhA added
to the stock by way of new combinations of overprint. Zakiyan and Saltikov try
to separate out the set of 10 but provide no illustrations to help the matter.
In this context, it is interesting
to see how a distinguished Soviet philatelist, Ustinovky (author of a big
handbook on Tannu Tuva), went about the matter in the 1980s. See the page from
his collection shown below. He is still trying to do it with Chuchin numbers
and the simple truth of the matter is that for most of his stamps, the forgers
have got their first – they have made the stamps which are otherwise impossible
or almost impossible to find. In this
case, I don’t think we are looking at things from the Yerevan cupboard or even at old SPhA material made from genuine
handstamps. I think we are looking at modern forgeries using fresh MNH** clean
Imperial stamps and newly-made handstamps.
But when you turn over the stamps,
as I have done in the second illustration, you see that some of them have old
signatures notably VINNER (who is known to have been familiar and reliable with Postmaster
Provisional handstamps ) and a BH which I have yet to identify [See now note at end of this piece]. These stamps
are also not so pristine – they have been in other collections as you would
expect. Ustinovsky seems to have made this little collection in the 1980s and mentions Zakiyan and Saltikov's book in his notes. But he is relying on Chuchin.
It
is on the copies with old handstamps that I will focus my attention as I continue to try to work out what did
happen in the back room of Yerevan post office in 1921.
Click on Image to Magnify
Note added: Philippe Gueniot suggests V.N.Ustinovksy as the user of the handstamp BH which can be seen to include an extended "Y" to make three Cyrillic initials BHY:
В (АДИМ)
Н (ИКОЛАИЕВИЧ)
У (СТИНОВСКИЫ)
Click on Image to Magnify
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