A Place Called PAROKHOD

Assumptions and preconceptions colour the way we see the world. This is true of big things, where the results are often enough disastrous, and small things where the results can be amusing:

If you collect postmarks of Imperial Russia then you get used to working your way, quickly, through hundreds of covers and cards in dealer stocks and auction lots - every time you get the chance. You will probably assume that place name postmarks are round, TPO postmarks oval, and ship mail postmarks also oval.

When I picked up the card below I headed for the place name at the top of the round place-name cancel and read PAROKHOD. That's a funny name for a place, I thought. Why would a place be called STEAMSHIP? And where is it? I looked to the bottom of the cancel and, moving between the three strikes, made out KHERSON. Oh, so it's in Kherson guberniya - and I looked for a GUB. to confirm it. Instead, I got ODESSA.

At this point I had my Homer Simpson moment. Doh!

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Of course, how could I have been so stupid - it's a steamship cancel for the Kherson -Odessa line. Forget that I never even knew there was such a line. There clearly is and now I have to find out about it.

Ninety-nine point something percent of swans are white, but there are also black swans. Ninety-nine point something of circular Imperial cancels are place name cancels but some are steamship cancels (as I did in fact know - Batum-Odessa being a common one).

One of Each Collecting - Imperial Russian Stamps Used on Cover

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For very rare stamps, like Moldavia Bulls Heads, inventories exist listing and illustrating each known stamp and cover, its provenance and so on. Fritz Heimbüchler's work on the Bulls Heads is a very, very good example.

But once stamps become a bit more common, we actually have no idea how many (now) exist. How many Russia #1 exist? How many Russia # 1 on cover? It's a pity that America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ don't interest themselves in this kind of question - I am sure the Technology exists to spy into albums and stockbooks and add up the results. It would be much more interesting than the contents of people's emails.

So we have to guess. Hands up if you think that less than 500 covers exist with Russia #1. Hands up if you think less than 1 000.  More than 5 000? And so on.

Nowadays, philatelists can be snobbish about mere collectors who want "one of each stamp" but I think it can be very interesting if combined with "one of each stamp, as a single franking, at the correct period, paying a recognisable tariff, on cover". Interesting and very hard.

If you were doing it for Imperial Russian stamps during the Tsarist period (so forget about imperforate stamps issued under the Provisional Government and later), you would be well advised to ignore rouble values - unless you were willing to include Money Transfers and Parcel cards. You would also struggle with frankings comprising a single 70 kopeck stamp and even 50 kopecks would be hard.

That's not all. Even though some stamps are so common used that they really have no value, finding them on cover can be incredibly difficult. Look at the 1888 item above. It's a single sheet of printed matter, folded for despatch into letter shape, and sent from St Petersburg to Ekenas, Finland. It qualified for a concessionary Printed Matter Tariff of 2 kopecks and the franking is provided by a 2 kopeck stamp in yellow green without thunderbolts.

From a dealer's box you might expect to pay 15 euros - maximum 25 - because it is clean and pretty and announces (in Swedish) a forthcoming visit from a travelling salesman carrying samples of Härra Landrin's products. But find me another one. The NSA and GCHQ would have to do a lot of Bulk data collection to find even a few hundred of such items - that's my guess. Or to make a more precise guess, I guess that fewer examples exist of  this stamp on cover than say Russia # 2.

Of course, you can prove me wrong - just send me the scans and I will add them to the Blog!

Collecting Imperial Russia on Cover

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There are collectors who try to find every issued stamp from their chosen country and period used on a cover. Some make it a more difficult task by ruling out philatelic usages or usages at the wrong date. Some set themselves the even harder challenge of accepting only single frankings.

Imperial Russia did not really issue many stamps and it ought to be possible to find them all used on cover or card or Money Transfer Form or Parcel Card ... but some are very, very elusive. 

The card above shows one very elusive stamp neatly used at the correct period on a card franked at the correct tariff (4 kopecks). It may be that the sender - an Englishman staying at the Grand Hotel Petrograd -  chose the stamps to make the card look more interesting but he probably did not realise that the 3 kopeck stamp on the left is the scarce one with perforation 13.5. This stamp is hard to find mint or used and people seem willing to pay 100 to 150 euros for examples (see the last www.filateliapalvelu.com auction results for Russia). This is the first time I have seen the stamp used on a cover or card and I hope to get a very good price for this very nice example of its use!

A Letter from Finland to San Stefano 1878

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Here is a letter going from Helsinki to San Stefano near Constantinople. It's an unusual destination but entirely explained by the date: the letter was sent from Helsinki on 4th April 1878 (N.S), transiting through St Petersburg on 23rd / 24th and through Odessa on the 28th (both O.S). There is no arrival cancellation but the letter has been roughly opened suggesting that it was indeed received by its military addressee.

On 3rd March 1878, at San Stefano, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed what was technically a preliminary peace Treaty following on from the Russo - Turkish War of 1877 - 78. The Treaty is remembered principally for its creation of an independent Bulgaria - the price paid for Ottoman defeat. Though a definitive Treaty never replaced the preliminary Treaty, discussions would have no doubt continued at San Stefano - the sender of this letter clearly expected the addressee to be there at least a month later and seems to have been correct in this assumption.

I am Still in Business...

Though I don't work so hard these days, I do still sell stamps and postal history. I don't make Lists, I don't have an Auction, but if you send me an email, I will tell you if I can help! I am trevor@trevorpateman.co.uk

I am good at Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine 1918 - 23; Imperial Russian stamps (including Fiscals) and postal history; RSFSR and Soviet postal history (but NOT stamps); classic Romania, stamps and covers; Finland before 1918 postal history.

I still have stocks for Baltic States, Old German States, Hungary, Poland.