1917 - 1923 Baltics, Caucasus and Ukraine: an Odd Fact

The famous stamps of "classic" philately - Penny Blacks, Bulls' Heads, Post Office Mauritius - appear over and over again in auction. There is a huge data-base of knowledge: how many exist, what prices they fetched, who owned them, and so on.

For the 1917 - 1923 period there are rare and fascinating items from the Baltics, Caucasus and Ukraine which have never appeared in auction as single lots. Either they have been bundled up in big lots or they have been sold privately - passed from collector to dealer to collector for decades. In such cases, there are often no publicly available pictures; there is no inventory of how many exist; and little is known about the prices which have been paid.

Some of these items are unique, some exist in a handful of copies. They are rarities. Most of them have probably been bought and sold for modest sums - let's say, under 1 000 (euros, dollars, pounds).

Not all of these things are obscure. For example, Latvia's 1918 # 1 Map Stamps are famous. But they were available in Riga for regular postal use for only two weeks at the end of December 1918 before Red Army troops occupied the Latvian capital and the post offices started using Russian stamps once again.

The number of genuinely used commercial covers with Map stamps from those two weeks in December 1918 is extremely small. But how small, we do not know. I have only ever seen (and sold) one and I could not get anything like the price I thought it deserved - which itself was, in my view, still ridiculously low (I asked for $1000 and didn't get it)

It's not hard to find auctions offering a choice of Russia # 1 on cover. The likely sale price is known. But there are many things from 1917 - 23 Baltics, Caucasus and Ukraine for which the likely sale price is unknown because they have never been seen in auction. And one reason that they have not been seen is that they are much rarer than Russia # 1 on cover ...

Ukraine Stamps and Postal History 1917 - 1923: a neglected field

Added February 2020: Most of my Ukraine-related Blog posts are now available in full colour book form. To find out more follow the link:

http://www.armeniazemstvo.com/2020/02/just-published-trevor-pateman.html

Ukrainian philately has its own specialised societies, not only in Ukraine but also in the USA (UPNS) and in France (SFUP). I guess the UPV still exists in Germany, where it was once the world's most important vehicle for research in Ukrainian philately.

Despite these organisations, Ukrainian stamps and postal history 1917 - 23 seem neglected. Partly, this is because there is actually a lot of material available. For example, for the year 1919 when Russian material is very hard to find (and most of it without stamps), Ukrainian material - and with stamps - is quite plentiful.

True, for some parts of Ukraine material is scarce (Poltava, for example) and true, mail going abroad to anywhere except Germany is hard to find.

But against this, common stamps are common and Money Transfer Forms are actually not scarce. The basic catalog listing in Michel - based entirely on Dr Seichter's work - is excellent. The illustrations are all accurate and reliable. Compare Yvert, which is dreadful!

But there are whole areas which are under-researched. Tariffs, for example - though we now have the work of Alexander Epstein; the use of Ukrainian stamps by the Bolsheviks after the Sovietisation of Ukraine; and even the dating of Trident introduction in 1918: if I came across a First Day of Use cover in a dealer's box, I would not know that that is what it was. [ But as free advice: if you see a genuine Trident cover with an August 1918 cancellation, buy it ]

In September 2011, Corinphila in Zurich will auction the Ukraine collection of the late Dr Ron Zelonka. It is much more than a Trident collection (it covers the whole period 1800 - 2000). It will be the first time that a specialised Ukraine collection has ben offered, broken down into Lots, since the 1987 sales of Vyrovyj's collection by the Swiss auction house Schaetzle. It will be a very interesting sale!

POSTSCRIPT 17 January. I was just looking at the latest Michel catalog for Eastern Europe (Osteuropa). They have scrapped the very good Ukraine listing which took up only a few pages and replaced it with something that looks useless! Nicht intelligent! All the more reason to use John Bulat's catalog: go to upns.org to order a copy

Cheap Postal History: Postmarks! (Try it for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia)

It has gone out of fashion, but collecting postmarks on loose stamps was once very popular. In some cases it is the only practical way of studying the postal history of a period or place: in many cases, there are not enough covers and those that do exist cost thousands (pounds, euros, dollars) and no one can really hope to gather enough together.

A good example of postmark study is to be found in S D Tchilingirian and W S E Stephen's "Stamps of the Russian Empire Used Abroad" which dates from the 1950s

Peter Ashford's "Imperial Russian Stamps Used in Transcaucasia" (from the 1970s) is in the same genre.

Last but not least comes I L G Baillie and E G Peel, "St Petersburg: the Imperial Post - its postmarks and other postal markings 1765 - 1914" (2001)

Eric Peel's personal collections have been dispersed on the market over the past few years. I have bought and sold several of them. Peel trawled through hundreds of thousands of stamps and could identify a postmark from one letter or a serial number - in some cases, from a kink in the outer circle of a postmark. In many thousands of cases, he pencilled the postmark identification on the back of the stamp.

Such postmark studies, using common stamps, are invaluable in assessing the authenticity of rare covers. The postmarks on the common stamps are a very good guide to how they should look on a cover.

For Transcaucasia, I have built up (and then sold) postmark collections on 1923 Transcaucasian pictorials which have the advantage of being large format stamps. It's not easy. You have to take every opportunity to acquire used copies despite the fact that you are going to find that 90% of them are cancelled BAKU or TIFLIS. But even then there are an awful lot of serial numbers to be distinguished. Those were both major cities with several post offices and many cancellers.

By way of encouragement: I find it much more satisfying to puzzle out a postmark from a couple of smudged letters than to do a crossword or Sudoku puzzle. (In truth, I don't know how to do a Sudoku puzzle)

If you have a limited budget and unlimited patience, try making a postmark collection. Let me make a suggestion. We have postmark studies of St Petersburg and Moscow (the work of G A Combs and N C Warr). But for quite major Russian cities, there are no serious studies at all ...

Happy New Year! Keep collecting in 2011!

Happy New Year to all my Readers!

The future of philately is in your hands!

I hope you will make a Philatelic New Year's Resolution.

Here are mine:

1. To start a new collection focussed on the postal history of one Russian town or city. I will count as "Russian" anywhere that was Russian before 1917 but I will continue after 1917 regardless of whether it remained in the Soviet Union. I have a couple of cities in mind but I would prefer somewhere a bit smaller ....

2. To study in depth one issue about which I currently know very little. Not necessarily a big issue - it could be something as small as Armenia's # 1 about which I blogged the other day.

3. To go to some stamp shows just as a visitor, not as a dealer with a stand

4. To get a decent magnifying glass.

Armenia 1919: "k 60 k" overprints

Armenia declared its national independence in May 1918 with Yerevan as its capital. Distinctive postage stamps did not appear until over a year later - July 1919 is the date usually given for the appearance of the first "k 60 k" overprints on 1 kopeck Russian stamps.

So this is Armenia's Number 1, celebrated 75 years later on a stamp of the modern Republic of Armenia.

We still know very little about it.

1. We do not know how many physically (numerically) separate handstamps were in use and whether they were (all or some) made individually or (all or some) made from moulds.

The core problem here is that some of the time it is not clear if one is looking at variations due to wear, ink or handstamping style of a clerk or looking at impressions from a different handstamp. I have a couple of hundred overprinted stamps in my stockbook and the variation among those I believe genuine is considerable ...

2. We do not know for sure how many post offices were open to despatch mail in the second half of 1919 and how many of them received or made a supply of "k 60 k" stamps

3. We do not know precisely what was the relation between centrally and locally produced overprints.

It is clear that at Katarsky Zavod - the Zangezur copper mines - there were locally produced handstamps in two denominations (60 and 120) and probably only two handstamps to make these famous local issues.

From the 2010 Artar catalog (page 16) it looks as if a Manuscript "60" surcharge was locally produced at Nizhnie Akhty - and if there, then possibly elsewhere, since there was a central directive regarding the uprating of 1 kopeck stamps to 60 kopecks. [ Correction: As Stefan Berger points out to me, the Nizhnie Akhty cancellation has a date of 30 3 1 ..This is not compatible with the "60" having been applied in response to a directive in July 1919. This suggests that the "60" in manuscript is a fake. The only other possibilities are that the Mss was an independent initiative prior to the official decision or that the "3" in the date stamp (March) is a slipped date ]

According to Ceresa (1978), there was a handstamp used locally at Elenovka (Yelenovka) which because of its similarities to the standard Erivan type (k 60 k without stops) could have been produced from a mould and sent from Erivan to Elenovka ... Ceresa illustrates a cover from his collection (Plate 1) part of which is better illustrated in the Artar catalog (page 16) - I believe the cover to be in a Moscow collection - but Artar does not regard the stamps on this cover as other than examples of the standard Erivan "k 60 k" without stops

The "k 60 k" without stops and with the "6" and "0" close together and apparently from a metal handstamp is associated with Alexandropol and generally attributed to that city in catalogues but which is also found with Erivan cancellations. It seems likely that this handstamp was indeed located in the Alexandropol post office and may have been made in the city rather than sent from Yerevan. At a later date, remainders of the issue may have been sent off to Yerevan for overprinting with framed and unframed "Z". But since stamps with Yerevan-style overprints are found with Alexandropol cancels, it seems there was also a central distribution of stamps from Yerevan.

Finally, at least one "k.60.k" handstamp was in use in Yerevan. I say at least one because Zakiyan provides two different illustrations of this surcharge, though calling both of them "Type II". (Zakiyan also shows two illustrations of "Type I" without dots, but these are the Erivan type ( space between "6" and "0") and the Alexandropol type (no space).

It would be nice to clear up what should be a relatively simple story. The most important fact to bear in mind is that the central directive was implemented with a mix of central and local initiatives - at a time when the desperate state of the country made everyday life very difficult to sustain

______________

Postscript: ELENOVKA. I have only seen CTO Dashnak material from one place apart from ERIVAN and ALEXANDRPOL and that place is ELENOVKA ERIV. I believe that this is because the Belgian mining engineer and philatelist, Boel ( of Katarsky Zavodi fame) visited Elenovka - the Ceresa cover mentioned above is a Boel cover. I don't know why he visited Elenovka (now called Sevan and located on Lake Sevan).
Elenovka was a Russian settlement founded in the middle of the 19th century and home to religious dissidents - principally Dukhobors - though many left for Canada around 1900.
Elenovka post office was open in the Dashnak period - as is evident from the CTO material and the Boel cover - and it remained open in the early Soviet period, though the cancellation is rare on 1922 - 23 issues.
Boel probably stopped at Elenovka because it was on the old post road from Yerevan to Tiflis - trains may not have been running when he needed one. In 1901. Esther Lancraft Hovey published an article in The National Geographic on "The Old Post Road from Tiflis to Erivan". This contains photographs of Elenovka, some of which are reproduced in Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus (Cornell University Press 1905)

Note added 30 March 2014: Boel also visited the copper mines at Allaverdi in Tiflis guberniya and there is Boel-related correspondence from Allaverdi. He may have used the Erivan - Tiflis post road to get to Allaverdi

Georgia, Soviet Issues 1922 - 23: A Discovery!

Today I was tidying up my stockbook of Soviet Georgia 1922 - 23. I was turning over stamps in order to separate ** from * stamps. I turned over a block of 4 of a 1923 stamp: the 10 000 pyb machine surcharge on the 1000 pyb brown (the Sower): Michel 53A and Gibbons 42. Somethng wasn't quite right: the paper seemed thin and a bit brittle. Then I realised:

The basic stamp of 1922 (Michel 32A and Gibbons 29) is supposed to be on horizontally laid paper (gestreiftem Papier). This paper is quite distinctive - it reminds me of expensive notepaper - and the horizontal laid lines are almost always easy to see - the stamps have quite wide margins and you can look in the margins to see the lines.

My stamps were on ordinary wove paper with the stamp design and overprint showing through.

What was I looking at? My stamps are not Forgeries - the scarce Forgery type is on wove paper for all values but it has design differences and for the 1000r stamp the colour is quite different: a very pale brown. Think of cheap and nasty chocolate!

Then I looked at the Gibbons Part 10, 2008 note for the original, unsurcharged 1922 issue; " The 500, 1000 and 5000r are on horizontally laid paper and the 2000 and 3000r on opaque wove paper. It is believed that occasionally sheets were printed on the incorrect paper"

So, if Gibbons is right, I am looking at examples of "incorrect paper" - perhaps these stamps were originally held back for that reason and only later used up when the machine overprints were being made.

Of course, if these stamps were from Great Britain or Russia we would have a Major Catalog Variety - but, unfortunately, it's Georgia so I am not suddenly a rich man

I found a few more of this Variety in my stock - probably from the same source.

Now I suppose I should go through all the other stamps in the stockbook looking for more examples of "incorrect paper" on other values and with other surcharges ....

If I do, I will report back in due course.

Armenia 1921 : Second Yessayan

This is a curious and rather beautiful set (Michel IIIa - IIIr) prepared by the (Y)essayan Printing Works in Constantinople at the same time as the First Yessayan set. The series was intended for use as Obligatory Tax stamps for Famine Relief, along the same lines as those issued in Azerbaijan and Georgia.

There were 16 stamps - eight different designs, each one printed both in grey and in red. As with the First Yessayan set, only some were issued and then only with surcharges.

For these stamps I have only one stockbook, since in all forms they are relatively scarce:

1. Unoverprinted stamps from the Original printing in which there was one sheet for each value. You will normally only find Originals for the stamps which were NOT issued and even then they are scarce. Unoverprinted examples of the issued stamps are rarities and I currently have none in stock. The Michel pricings only make sense as prices for reprints and even then they are low. I sell Reprints at 10 euro each if they are in nice ** condition. But I ask 100 euro for a ** Original, when I can find one. Michel has 2 euro 50 cents ....

2. Stamps with genuine overprints. Of necessity, genuine overprints are only found on stamps of the original printing. Some mint values are reasonably common, notably the "20" surcharge on 5000 r grey. Correspondingly, this stamp in used condition is rare - at least as rare as the "15" on 5000 r red to which Michel gives the highest used valuation

3. First Reprints. Made by Yessayan by re-setting the 8 values onto just two sheets

4. Second Reprints. Made by Yessayan by re-setting all values a second time onto just one sheet

The fact that there are two distinct sets of Reprints explains why there is not just a gradual deterioration in print quality. In addition, First Reprints are on a white paper which is either without gum (about 50%) or with a good white gum. Second Reprints are always gummed and the gum is yellowish, giving the paper a yellowish appearance.

You rarely find se-tenant examples of different reprint values. This is because the sheets were cut up by packet makers in the 1920s and 1930s. I guess it annoyed them that Yessayan did not put equal numbers of each value onto his reprint sheets!

For pictures of the two distinct Reprints in sheets, see Stefan Berger's article in Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer Russland-Philatelie, # 93, November 2010. Each Reprint was made for BOTH grey and red values. I think the print run of the first Reprint was probably bigger than that for the second.

Any surcharge on a Reprint is going to be a Forgery. It's that simple. In a rational world there would be NO forged surcharges on Original stamps, since the Originals without surcharge are much much scarcer than with surcharge. However, people are sometimes badly informed (look at the Michel prices) and there may be Forged surcharges on genuine Original stamps.

5. The Forgery. There is only one recorded Forgery type which is so bad that it seems likely it was made from catalogue illustrations in the 1920s. The gum is really thick and brown and the paper grey brown. These Forgeries should not trouble any serious collector. Curiously, the red forgeries are RARE! Maybe the printer did not have enough red ink to print a decent quantity ...