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.

Q: When is CTO better than Mint?

A: When it's a stamp of Armenia 1919 - 21 ("Dashnak" Armenia).

The single handstamps used in this period to overprint Imperial Russian stamps - the framed Z, unframed Z and the rouble surcharges - were forged from the outset and applied to many,many thousands of Imperial stamps to create packets of "50 Armenia". What could be easier? Most of the forgeries are easily separated out by a specialist collector, but some are harder work to detect.

At the time, many - possibly most - sheets of genuinely overprinted stamps were sold to the handful of dealers operating in Armenia with a cancellation on every stamp, or over a block of 4, or in the corners of the sheet. These cancellations are not so much Cancellations to Order (CTO) as we understand that. Rather, they are authenticating cancels meant to guarantee the overprints.

Some of the cancellations have been forged and some of those forgeries are recent. But most of them are poor imitations and none of them has been applied on a large scale. There was no call for them from the Packet Trade. It's quite hard to put together a collection of these forged cancellations - something which certainly cannot be said about forged overprints!

In addition, only a small number of cancellers were used to authenticate material. Cancellations of Alexandropol on loose stamps are almost certain to be genuine and it is really only the Erivan cancellations which have been forged and applied over forged overprints. And I have only ever seen "CTO" material from one other town, Elenovka, and that in very small quantities. My guess is that the Belgian mining engineer, Gustave Boel (responsible for the "60" and "120" Giryusy / Katarsky Zavod provisionals) passed through Elenovka on his travels and bought some stamps there, possibly of just one face value, which he had authenticated with the Elenovka cancel.

So when I am asked, How should I go about collecting Dashnak Armenia? I would always advise starting from the "CTO" material. Once you have a feel for what the overprints should look like, then start adding the mint material.

What about digital forgeries? Yes, that could become a problem. That's why old collections are a better source of material than some shiny new offering on ebay.