Armenia 1920, 10 rouble on 35 kopeck: The Old Jokes are the Best Jokes

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One morning, twenty years ago, I woke up to find myself a Deutschmark millionaire.

The editors at Michel had completely re-written the catalogue pages for Armenia. They had taken the 1978 book by Zakiyan and Saltikov and given their own listing a new and excellent structure, only unsatisfactory at the end where they ran out of space and compressed the listing of the 1923 overprints on the Yerevan pictorial set.

In addition, they had re-priced everything, for the most part intelligently - after all, Michel is a catalogue in a quite different league to Scott or Yvert where you don't expect any knowledge of the subject to be on display.

But they had made one big mistake. Zakiyan and Saltikov published (page 99 of their book) a Yerevan document prepared by the new Bolshevik administration in 1921, listing quantities of Dashnak stamps remaining in the post office - some numbers very large, some very small. The Bolsheviks located over half a million copies of the 5 rouble on 10 kopeck but - apparently - only 85 copies of the 10 rouble on 35 kopeck.

But Michel thought this was a list of numbers issued, not numbers remaining. Big mistake.

As a result some common stamps, notably the 10 rouble on 35 kopeck surcharge, appeared with fantastic never-before-seen valuations: 1500 DM and even more (3500 DM) when the 10r was applied over an existing framed or unframed Z.

In this way I became a Deutschmark millionaire. I had hundreds of these stamps then and I still have dozens (see the selection above).

Twenty years on, sellers regularly fall into the trap Michel has created and offer these common stamps as rarities - look at ebay or delcampe or Philasearch and you are almost certain to find one.

In reality, the 10 rouble on 35 kopeck perforated should probably retail for 10 - 15 € according to condition and when combined with an unframed Z maybe 50 - 75 €. With a framed Z it is genuinely scarce (as are all rouble overprints combined with framed Z) and it should probably retail at 150 € but could sensibly be offered as a single Lot in a specialist auction, something which is not true of the regular 10r or the 10r over unframed Z. At 150 € it would be cheap relative to its scarcity - but Armenian philately is repeatedly "spoilt" as a collecting area by the constant stream of new forgeries and the equally constant stream of catalogue errors, most recently in the ARTAR handbook. Both have the effect of making buyers cautious.

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Belgian Expeditionary Force in Russia 1915

Late in 1915, a group of about 350 men and 13 armoured cars and other vehicles were transported in British ships from the Belgian coast to the port of Archangel. They comprised the Belgian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, sometimes known as the Belgian Armoured Car Division and more long-windedly, Le Corps Expeditionnaire des Autos-Canons-Mitrailleuses Belges en Russie.

They headed from Archangel to the Peterhof outside Petrograd and camped there until being sent to the Galician Front in January 1916. The Peterhof is home to the Winter Palace where Nicholas II was in residence. He inspected the Belgian Corps on 6th December 1915. The letter card below describes the Inspection:

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The card is addressed to a Belgian soldier interned in the Netherlands, at the Harderwyk [Harderwijk] camp. It was sent from PETERHOF PETROGR on 3 12 15, and transited through PETROGRAD 18 12 15 (where it was censored) and the Dutch VELDPOST 14 1 16. The sender gives his name and address as "Aug[uste] Fileé (? see footnote), Corps des autos Canons Belge, Poste centrale à Petrograde". There is no Corps cahcet on this letter-card and it has passed through the civilian mail.

The letter, in French, dated 16 December [New Style, equivalent to the Old Style postmark 3rd December]. It records that the previous week they had been inside the [Winter] Palace "unknown to the Queen" [ " a l'insu de la reine"]. It looks like they ate there [nous avons diner ? though that doesn't seem grammatical ] and that the Tsar then inspected their armoured cars one by one and that photographs were taken which will make a very fine souvenir. As for the future, they are ready and awaiting orders.

 This item has now been sold

Footnote: Google returns several "Rue Auguste Filee" in Belgium but no other information

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).

The Russian Cruiser ASKOLD

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The other day, I bought the postcard above. On the back, in a typical English handwriting style, is a note saying "Photo taken in Murmansk Harbour November 1918".

Twenty years ago, it would have taken at least an hour to find out more about this card - even though a lot of information is already provided. Unless you had a specialist reference book on your shelf, it would have meant a visit to a Library or possibly a decision to Phone a Friend.

Now, it takes a few seconds to pull up the Wikipedia entry for the Russian cruiser "Askold", built 1899 - 1901. It was seized by the British navy in 1918 during "White" operations against Bolshevik Russia. Wikipedia says it was seized at Kola Bay and if you then hop to the entry for Kola Bay that turns out to be an inlet (a fjord) at Murmansk.

The British renamed the ship HMS Glory IV but then offered it back to the Soviets in 1921, once they had decided to recognise the new regime. The Soviets looked it over, thought it only fit for the scrapyard, and to the scrapyard it duly went in 1922. 

What is Unusual about this 1919 Money Transfer Form?

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Because they did not have any indication of value - no imprinted stamp - Money Transfer Forms and other formulars did not require Security Printing arrangements and in Imperial Russia were often printed locally. The place of printing is often indicated on the front  at the bottom right as in the Formular shown above where you can read EKATERINOSLAVSK P - T OKRUG - Ekaterinoslav Post and Telegraph District.

The Formular has been used to send 400 roubles from IVANOVKA EKATERINOSL[av] 16 6 19 to ROSTOV DON 18 6 19, charged at 1% as indicated by the 4 x 1 rouble imperforate Imperial Arms overprinted with the Trident of Odesa type 5d. I just assume that the Formular was used in the period of "White" control of the Katerinoslav district. Correct me if I am wrong!

The real interest of this Formular is that it is a post-revolutionary reprint of the Imperial period Formular but with the Imperial Arms completely removed from the top left of the front side. In other Districts, you see the Arms defaced in post - 1917 reprintings but these Ekaterinoslav formulars are the only ones I have seen with the Arms completely removed.  There were a couple of examples in the Zelonka collection and I also have two examples. My guess is that the reprinting dates from `1918 or even 1919 rather than 1917. The card stock used is of quite poor quality.

Of course, this is not the only thing of interest on this Formular. I am sure readers can see others.

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

The History of Crimea in Postmarks?

For most English people, the History of Crimea means a war fought in the middle of the 19th century. It's a pity it's not that simple. Today I looked in my boxes of pre-World War Two Soviet Union postal history and pulled out four items:

The 1929 postmark above is inscribed in Cyrillic at the top for  KARASUBAZAR, the original Tatar name for a place now called Bilohirsk (in Ukrainian) and Belogorsk (in Russian). The postmark is bi-lingual and at the bottom is inscribed in Arabic.

The 1930 postmark is in Russian at the top with a soft sign after the CH (Google tells me that in Ukrainian there would be no soft sign). The International R label on this letter transliterates the place name as KERTCH though in English-language sources it is now normally spelled KERCH. But at the bottom we have KERC in Latin script and this could be post-Ataturk Turkic - though Google has the name with a cedilla in order to indicate the soft "Ch" pronunciation: KERÇ

This 1940 Soviet postmark for SIMFEROPOL also gives the city its Tatar name AQMESCID in Latin script.

Finally, here is one where I have hit Google without success (I tried for Jewish / Karaite communities too). At the top we have what looks like KADISH and at the bottom QAD S or QAD 5 in Latin script. This is one my readers must solve. Postscript: And Vasilis Opsimos has solved it. See his Comment which identifies Kadish as present-day Voronky.

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

Allaverdi, Tiflis - Can You Help?

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Stefan Berger and I are looking for examples of ALLAVERDI TIFL cancels on cover or on loose stamps during the period 1914 - 1924. We are interested in all serials and types. If you can help, please send me a scan at trevor@trevorpateman.co.uk

The example above is on a 1914 card from the Peter Ashford collection.

Update 31 July 2014: Thanks to Thomas Berger for this magnificent cover:

The cover is from the cooper mines at Allaverdi to the copper mines at Katarsky Zavod [ Giriusy, Zangezur]. They were both operated by the same Belgian company where the philatelist Gustave Boel worked as a mining engineer.

Update 5 March: Thanks to Vasilis Opsimos for this better 1915 example:

Update 24 May: Thanks to Howard Weinert for scans of the item below:

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