Much scarcer than Russia Number 1 on cover?

This is my favourite recent acquisition. What and why?

In June 1919, the Volunteer Army forces of General Denikin captured Kharkov from the Bolsheviks, who had returned after the withdrawal of German forces at the end of 1918. The Volunteer Army held on until the end of 1919 when the Bolsheviks re-took the city.

This letter from a South Russian mining organisation located in Kharkov (I can't manage a word-for-word translation) was sent as unsealed Printed Matter to a mine in Alexandrovsk - Grushevski, then in the Don Cossack Oblast with a population of 50 000 and many mines. Today it is Shakhty in Russia, northeast of Rostov on Don. It got its new name (which means "Mine") in 1920 and hosted the first of Stalin's show trials in 1928 when fifty-odd mining engineers were accused of wrecking and sabotage as agents of the former mine owners. Later, it was home to a serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo - the subject of a film Child 44 currently causing controversy in Russia.

The stamps are roller cancelled KHARKOV 16 11 19 and there is a receiver cancellation on the back dated 23 11 19.

The 10 kopeck franking here compares with a 35 kop or later 70 kop tariff for ordinary letters and double that for Registered letters, so it's a cheap rate - just like the cheap Imperial printed paper tariffs. I don't think I have previously seen this Tariff in operation. I also don't think I have seen a cover franked exclusively with the lowest value in the Denikin series - the 5 kopeck orange which keeps the colour of the Imperial 1 kopeck but increases the face value to 5 kopecks ( the Denikin 10 kopeck green parallels the Imperial 2 kopeck and the 15 kopeck red parallels the 3 kopeck).

Maybe there is a whole heap of these Printed Matter covers out there - send me scans! - but my guess is that you will find it much easier to find a Russia Number 1 on cover - even a pair of Russia Number 1's on cover - than to find another commercial cover with this franking.

Denikin Stamps and a common catalogue fallacy

Click on Image to Magnify

One of the most common catalogue errors is to value very old stamps on a New Issue basis. Low value stamps get low catalogue values and higher value stamps get higher ones. But this is often a very poor metric to use: in periods of inflation, for example, low value stamps have little postal utility and higher value stamps often get used in big multiples. This is true for several Russian Civil War issues, including the Denikin stamps of South Russia.

Michel 21010 / 2011 values used Denikin stamps as follows:

5 kop              0.20

10 kop            0.20

15 kop            0.20

    35 kop            0.20   

  70 kop            0.20 

1 r                   0.20

2 r                   1.50

3 r                   1.00

5 r                   1.20

7 r                   2.50

10 r                 1.70

In the Schmidt Collection (see previous Blog), a very old accumulation of Denikin Bundleware and Used Off Paper contained the following quantities of used stamps:

5 kop        17

10 kop      90

15 kop      91

35 kop    266

70 kop    337

1 r          176

2 r            83

3r            66

5r            64

7r              0

10r         220

Now, from experience, the 7 rouble is not a great rarity. It is simply missing from this old Lot - maybe it is in another cigar box. So I don't draw any conclusions from the fact there are no copies present. But look at the other figures. The concentration of  35 and 70 kop stamps reflects the fact that these were letter rates or the basis of letter rates ( 35 kop Ordinary / 70 kop Registered; later 70 kop and  1r 40 kop). The concentration of 10 rouble stamps reflects the fact that these were most needed for Money Transfer Forms and Parcel Cards.

I have illustrated the Denikin stamps with horizontal pairs. But for rouble values, vertical pairs and strips are more common - the space on Money Transfer forms and Parcel Cards allowed for stamps is a vertical strip. In contrast, horizontal pairs of 35 kop and 70 kop are common - they were used as letter seals.

Suppose I had the 7 rouble value. I estimate there would be 50 - 60 copies. So the constraint on making sets is provided by the 5 kopeck. I could only make 17 sets. (And the pair I have shown is the only pair I have ...) . A "Short Set" of used Denikins would exclude the 5 kop, not the 10 rouble!

One further comment: ALL the stamps in the accumulation I have studied are used in the period of "White" control of South Russia and Ukraine. Later dates which would represent Soviet use appear not to be present.  Such later use is most common on Parcel Cards. The low kopeck values would have been revalued x 100 in Spring 1920 and it may be that as a result the low values become more common in the Soviet period, but in my experience it is the higher values - especially the 10 rouble - which still dominate. 

The Joy of Bundleware

Kiloware, Bundleware, Used Off paper, Packet Making - these are things which only exist because of philately. From the very beginning, the hobby was dominated - and still is dominated - by stamp collecting. To service that hobby, a labour-intensive  industry developed which took archives and correspondences - not by the kilo but by the tonne - and turned them into saleable individual stamps. In the process, of course, irreplaceable postal history and historically valuable documents - once the stamps were removed - were turned into waste paper.

Sometimes the workshops were amateur and careless. At other times, material was more carefully graded. For example, clean covers with good cancellations on the stamps might be taken out and only covers with poor cancellations cut up and the stamps washed off the paper. I have been told that in some cases, workers were paid a bonus if they found errors or varieties - probably they were told what to look for.

Yesterday, I was looking through old Bundleware and "Used Off Paper" from the Philipp Schmidt collection - recently sold as the "Krim Sammlung" by the Bamberg auction house Arbeiter. This has been locked away for decades and was collected beginning in the 1930s - when an old glassine gives a dealer's address as "Adolf - Hitler - Str" it helps date the collection !  (Click on Image to Magnify)

I was looking through Russian  Civil War material.

First I looked through hundreds of used Shahiv stamps - the first general issue stamps of Ukraine, in use from mid-1918. Here I was looking at postmarks but I was really hoping to find local perforations. I found one, shown below, with a place name cancellation which is not familiar to me. (Click on Image to Magnify)

Then I looked at hundreds of used Denikins - all values. Here it was very noticeable that there were only a few copies of the 5 kopeck stamp. In periods of inflation,the lowest value is always hardest to find used. This is also true of the 10 Shahiv Ukraine stamp (and in another region, the Far East Republic definitives). 

Among the Denikins, I was hoping to find local perforations but did not. I did find a few examples of stamps printed on white paper - these are from a small printing and can also occasionally  be found mint with white gum, quite different from the thick brown gum and brown paper used for most of the issue.

And, I did find one rare item - a 70 kopeck block of four, cut into two pairs, with a central gutter. Now normally the printer's sheets were cut before use and it is really very unusual to find a used gutter pair. 

It is not much of a reward for a lot of work but I am pleased with these items. And, of course,there are also the postmarks ...