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| Front Cover | |
| Index | |
| Officers and representatives of... | |
| President's message by A.... | |
| Editorial | |
| Overprints of General Wrangel in... | |
| The Liady messenger post issue... | |
| Tannou Touva - a survey by A. Cronin... | |
| Letter from the theatre of war-caucasus... | |
| Russia. specimen stamps by J. V.... | |
| Additional postmarks of Russian... | |
| Notes on Mongolia by G. S. Russell,... | |
| The soviet censorship in Roumania... | |
| Anglo-Soviet-Persian censorship... | |
| OKCA and North-West Army by A.... | |
| Retouch of the 10 rouble arms type... | |
| Inverted backgrounds on postal... | |
| Prominent retouch on 35k. arms... | |
| 100th anniversary of Russia #1... | |
| Addenda to railway postmarks of... | |
| Regular postage stamp issues of... | |
| Catalogue of Russian vignettes,... | |
| Post cards of the Russian Empire... | |
| Zemstvo stamps omitted by Churchin,... | |
| New soviet issue dedicated to the... | |
| Philatelic adventures in Europe... | |
| Notes from collectors by Dr. A.... | |
| Expertization committee of Rossica... | |
| Stamps of the Russian Eempire used... | |
| The evolution of prices of Russian... | |
| Caspary Auction by Dr. G.... | |
| Additional Notes on the goss sale... | |
| Overprints of General Wrangel in... | |
| Notes from collectors (continued... | |
| Editorial comments on "Phantasies"... |
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Front Cover
Cover Index Page 1 Officers and representatives of the society, honorary members Page 2 President's message by A. A. Chebotkevitch Page 3 Editorial Page 4 Overprints of General Wrangel in Crimea and Constantinople by A. M. Rosselevitch (continued on page 71) Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 The Liady messenger post issue of 1941 by Dr. C. de Stackelberg Page 13 Page 14 Tannou Touva - a survey by A. Cronin and W. S. E. Stephen (continued from #53, page 18) Page 15 Page 16 Letter from the theatre of war-caucasus k854 by K. Adler Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Russia. specimen stamps by J. V. Stuart Page 20 Page 21 Additional postmarks of Russian troops in France 1916-17 and postmarks of a Russian unit in France by J. Posell Page 22 Notes on Mongolia by G. S. Russell, A. Rosselevitch, S. D. Tchilinghirian, and Dr. G. B. Salisbury Page 23 Page 24 The soviet censorship in Roumania 1945-46 by A. Cronin Page 25 Anglo-Soviet-Persian censorship by R. Sklarevski Page 25 OKCA and North-West Army by A. Rosselevitch Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Retouch of the 10 rouble arms type stamps by Dr. C. de Stackelberg Page 30 Page 31 Inverted backgrounds on postal savings and control stamps by R. Sklarevski Page 32 Prominent retouch on 35k. arms type by A. Cronin Page 33 100th anniversary of Russia #1 by A. A. Chebotkevich Page 33 Addenda to railway postmarks of Imperial Russia by K. Adler Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Regular postage stamp issues of USSR by K. Adler. Corrections and clarifications. Journals 49/50 and 54 Page 37 Catalogue of Russian vignettes, part III. Phantasies by E. Marcovitch Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Post cards of the Russian Empire by R. Sklarevski (continued from no. 54, page 38) Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Zemstvo stamps omitted by Churchin, by N. Matishev (continued from no. 54, page 51) Page 52 New soviet issue dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Russian stamps (1858-1958) by Kurt Adler Page 54 Page 55 Philatelic adventures in Europe - 1957, part II by J. Posell Page 56 Page 57 Notes from collectors by Dr. A. H. Wortman, A. M. Rosselevitch, J. Barry, E. Collins, K. Adler, R. Sklarevski, T. Gryzewski, L. R. Tippie, V. Domanski, and A. Prado (continued on page 76) Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Expertization committee of Rossica society Page 65 Page 66 Stamps of the Russian Eempire used abroad, part III : Persia, Khanates of Bukara and Khiva, Sin-Kiang, reviewed by Dr. G. B. Salisbury Page 67 Page 68 The evolution of prices of Russian stamps by W. Frauenlob Page 69 Caspary Auction by Dr. G. B. Salisbury Page 70 Additional Notes on the goss sale by Dr. G. B. Salisbury Page 70 Overprints of General Wrangel in Crimea and Constantinople (continued from page 12) Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Notes from collectors (continued from page 64) Page 76 Page 77 Editorial comments on "Phantasies" by E. Marcovitch Page 78 |
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THE JOURNAL of the ROSSICA SOCIETY of RUSSIAN PHILATELY Silver Medals at Belgrade National Exhibition "Zefib 1937"and the International Exhibition, Koenigsberg "Ostropa 1935" Bronze Medals at the International Exhibition "Raia 1935"and Vienna International Exhibition"WIPA 1933" Recent International Awards: Silver Medals at Berlin.Bephila 1957", Parana,"Eficon 1958" and Buenos Aires,"Temex 1958" No.55 1958 Editor Dr. Gregory B. Salisbury 49th and Locust Streets Philadelphia 39, Pa., U. S. A. "EDITCR IN CHIEF Dr. G, B. .. abury : SPBLISHER AND 4SS STANT EDITOR RIBLISHER A-D ASSiSTANT EDITOR ENGLISH EDITION. .R. jA. Sklaremai 'RUSSIAN EDITION A. N.. Lavrov BUSINESS EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS ART EDITOR A. A. Chobotkovitch :K. Adlor E. Marcovitch E. L. Wisewell, Jr. A. Rosselevitch I N D E X Page a 2 Officers & Representatives of the Society, Honorary Mombors. 3 Presidontts Message. A. A. Chebotkevitch, 4 Editorial. 5 -12 Overprints of General Wrangel in Crimea & Constantinople. A. Y. Rossele- vitch. Continued on Paqn 71 13-14 The Liady Messenger Post Issue of 1941. Dr. C. de Stackelborg. 15-17 Tannou Tota A Survoy. A. Cronin &YW. S. E. Stoipaen Continued from #i3, JPe 18. .To be continued. 17-20 Letter from the Theatre of War-Caucasus k854. K. Adler. 20-21 Russia. Spocimen Stamps. J. V. Stuart. 22 Additional Postmarks of Russian Troops in France 1916-17 and Postmarks oi a Kussian Unit in France. J. Posell, 23-24 Notes on Mongolia* GC So Russell, A. Rosselevitch, S. D. Tchilinghiriarn and Dr. G, B. Salislury. . 25 The Soviet Censcrship in Roumniaa 1945-46. A. Cronin. 25 Anglo-Goviet-Brsian Censorship. R. Sklarevd 26-29 (CA and North-West Army. A. Rosselevitch. 30-32 Retouch of the 10 Rouble Arms Type Stamps. 'Dr. C. de Stackelberg. 32 Inverted Backgrounds on Postal Savings & Cortrol'Stamps. R. Sklarevaki. 33 Prominent Retouch on 35k. :Aims Typ. A. Cronin. 34 100th. Anniversary of Russia #1. A. A. Chebctkevich. 35-37 Addenda to Railway Postmarks of Imperial Russia.' K. Adler. 38 Regular Postage Stamp Issues of USSR. K Adler, CRRECTIONS & CLLRIFICA- TI ,. Journals 49/50 and 54. 39-46 Catalogue of Russian Vignettes. PartIII. Phantasies. E. Marcovitch. (To be continued). 47--. Post Cards of the Russian Empire, R. Sklarovski, Cont. from #54. Page 3. 92.- -Zemstvo Stamps Omitted by Chubhin. N. MatisheVo Cont. from #5. Page ,. 54-6b' New Soviet Issue Dedicated to the 100th. Anniversary of the Russian Stemre (1858-1958). Kiut'Adler. 56-58 Philatelic Adventures in Europe 1957. PIrt II Jo Posell. 58-64 Notes frpm Collectors. Dr. A.. Wortman, Ai M. Rosselevitch, J. Barry, E. Collins, K. Adler, R. Sklarevdcij T. Gryzewki, L. Ro Tipple, V. Domar.-,:. and A. Prado, Continued on PaRe 76 - 65-66 Expertization Coimittoe of Rossica. 67-68 Stamps of the Russian Empire Used Abroad Part III. Porsia, Khanates ) Bukhara & Khiva, Sin-Kiang. Reviewed by Dr. G. B, Salisbury. 69-70 The Evolution of Prices of Russian Stamps, W. Frauenlob. 70 Caspery Auction. Dr. G. B. Salisbury 70 Additional Notes on the Goss Sale. Dr. G. B. Salisbury. 71-76 Overprints of Goneral Wrangel in Crimea & Constantinople. Cont. from P, 1J. -77 Notes from Colloctors. Cont. from Pago 6A. 78 -Editorial Ccmnmnts on "Fhantasios" by E. Marccv-tch# PAGE 53 NOT' ISThED OFFICERS OF T H.E S O C I ETY PRESIDENT A. A. Chebotkevitch II Cloront Strooet:: Cove, New York. SECRETARY Russian Speaking Section A. N. Lavrov. SECRETARY English Speaking Section Dr. G. B, Salis: -ry. HONORARY MEMBERS A. A. Chebotkevitch V. A. Rachmanoff H. M. Shenitz N. I. Kordakov A. M. Rosselevitch R. A. Sklarevski A. N. Lavrov Dr. G. B. Salisbury V. P. Cerny E. I. Marcovitch N. V. Savitzky J. Rubach REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SOCIETY NEW YREK GROUP V. Cerny 91-15, 68th Avenue, Forest Hills, Long-Island, N. Y. WESTERN U.S. L. S. Glass P.O. Box 36646, Wilshire La Brea Station, Los Angeles 36, California. GREAT BRITAIN J. Barry 77A St. James Road, Sutton, Surrey, England. BELGIUM I, Braunstein 6, rue Mignot Delstanche, Yxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium. GERMANY Dr. B, Woropinsky OLpenestrasse 364, Koln-Merheim, Germany, U. S. Zone. ISRAEL A. Trumpeldor Arba Artzot 25, Tel Aviv, Israel. FR. MOROCCO V. N. BUTKOV 49 Rue Laperouse, Casablanca, Fr. Morocco CANADA G. Rozday Woda 29 Lyon Avenue, Toronto 10, Ontario, Canada. VENEZUELA E. E. Marcovitch Edif. "Camuri" Apto. No. 25, Callo Real de Sabana Grande, Caracas, Venezuela. BRAZIL P. Beloff Rua Pedrozo 238, Caixa Post 2960, San Paulo, Brazil SA. PAULO REGION. A. Vansovich c/.o.. Livraria Freitas'Bc tes, Caixa Postal 899, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. RIO DE JMT R.' REGION. ARGENTINA B. Riasnianski Larrazabal 2870 Buen;., -res, Argentina. - FRANCE A. Liashenko 1 Rue du Bocage, .Paris 15, France. AUSTRALIA V Tvelkmeyer 45 Garnerts Ave., 'Marrickville, Sydney, N.S.iT., Australia.. RIembership dues are $3.00 per aninum for all countries. Application forms, which must be filled outj, aie available upon request. Journal' membership lists, code, bulletins, and supplements to membership will be sent out anriualy:. Please make check payable to A. N. Lavrov instead of Dr. G. B. Salisbury or R6ssic. We .welcome. advertisements .from members, non members and dealers. Full page %30.00. Half page $15.00. Quarter Page $7.50. Telfth of a page $o,50, (5 lines). Members of Rossica pay only 50% of the cost. With a discount The cost per line to members is only.25 .cents. By helping yourself, you also help us. Page 2 #55. : S PRESIDENT S MESSAGEE by A.A. Chebotkevieh First of :all I wish to congratulate the Editor and the Staff for winning three top medals, -all silver, within.a year, at three international exhibitions. Considering that four years ago we had only a one or two page Bulletin, the progress is amazing. The growth of the journal produced a tripling of membership, world wide coverage, and many advantages for the members. Another editor of a large publication has been added to our midst, already strengthened by Editors Charlotte N. Downs of STAMPS and Harry Weiss, of EEKLY PHILLTELIC GOSSIP. Our newcomer is James Negus, Editor of the Journal of CHINESE fPILATELY, formerly the China Sectibn Bulletin, He is also on the.editorial staff of the Journal of JP.S. of London. He has already promised our Editor many articles dealing with the philatell. cally interesting issues of Mongolia, Manchuria, Tannu Touva, and other areas in the field common to both ourselves and to the China specialists.. We wish to welcome President of the Lith; ... Philatelic Society wh(. has become our member. Mr. Joseph Mulevich, a..frind .of. the editor, adds strength to our, Baltic group headed by Hon. Member V.; Rachmanoff, speciaois' of Poland and Vincent Domanski specialist of Poland and all the Baltic countries. The Editorial Board now hopes to receive articles on postal history, forerunners, use of Russian stamps in these lands and the #1 isfars Hon. Member A.P. Rosselevitch has succeeded in forming the Experti- zation Committee, longour dream, and for this we are thankful. He has recently published an article in Novoye Russkoye Slovo ( October'1, 1958) " 100th Anniversary of.1st. Russian Stamp in which our field, as well as our society received a great deal of publicity, and should bring us many new members. At a recent meeting of HEw York Section, ballots which were cast and returned, were counted and your officers have.been reelected. On behalf of the elected members, a word of gratitude is in order, and a promise that confidence in us will be sustained. Those who have not returned the balloae please do so. Our Editor, according to the program of the American Philatelic Congress Convention, is to be one of-two main speakers, and he will deli- ,' the major address at the final session. He will speak on the postal history of Russia, Russia itI, and the status'of Russian philately to-day. Ie are very proud of this honor, which reflects well upon the name of the Rostir- Society of Russian Philately. #55 5 E D I T 0 R I A L During the past year we have been most fortunate in strengthening our editorial staff, in improving the contents of the journal, and in achieving world wide recognition by winning three medals at major international shows. We can not rest on these laurels, for our publication is only good as this present issue. We have initiated many important philatelic research projects in the past, which are now being published in a serial form. We are now sponsoring other studies, and we ask for you cooperation. Dr. C.. de Stackelberg is revising the obsolete list of the varieties of the Arms Issue of 1909-1923, Hon. Member R. A. Sklarevski is probing the plate flaws and cancellations c. South Russia Scott Nos. 61 to 71, and Far Eastern Republic Scott Nos. 49 to 58. Please send them all of your varieties. Hon. Members A. M. Rossele- vitch and E. Marcovitch are waging a war against forgeries, fakes and fantastic items which have invaded the catalogs, and albums. The former likewise heads the new Experti;ation Committee, while the later is preparing catalogs of revenues and vignettes or labels. Your Editor is collecting all the available data on R Y B overprints. He has likewise purchased a rare German volume on Russian Postal History which Mr. Rosselevitch is kindly translating and editing for publication. Thus, -: you see, we are moving ahead, and we do not limit ourselves to waiting for manuscripts. We create themI Contributors are urged to send in articles, notes, even letters with bits of philatelic information. Our best feature is the "Notes from Col- lectors", gleaned entirely from our correspondence. We urge you however to either send a rough draft, which will be circulated among the editors for alterations, and then returned to you for acceptance of changes, or a finished article, which you wish published as is. In the latter case, we shall, in the editorial comment, state our own views, additions, etc. Dead- line for the Spring Issue is December First, and for the Autumn Issue, July First. Contributions should be typed in duplicate, or written legibly on thin pages, on one side, with ample margins all around, with carbon copy. Authors who know the Russian language, as well as the English (we know who they are) must write in both languages, to save editors translations. We have several prominent author, emigres, who insist on writing in English only, and this must stop, for it merely gives us double work. As of this issue we stop the thoughtless practice of many authors who alter their texts up to seven times, after submitting MSS, by endless additions and deletions. After editing, polishing, circulating the article translat."'g it, and stencilling it, it is frustrating and .time consuming to repeat the performance. This is you magazine. Share in its creation. Take pleasure in its appearance. Only through its pages can our hobby live onI Page 4 55 f OmERItINTS OF ZGEERAL REANGEL fI -GRIMEA ADM CONSTAMTINOPt by A; Rosselevitcb deceased Hon. member of Rossica, S. Manjeley, in Nos. 22 and 23 of pre- war issues of our journal"gave an excellent and full review of the issues produced in Crimea, in the autumn of 1920, i.e. overprint "5 five rubles" on Russian stamps of 5 kop. perforated and imperforate and 20 kop. perforated and also on 35 kop. South Russia or "Edinaya Rossia". I should also add that besides these mentioned by him overprints and errors, I have a double over- print inverted on 20 kop. and that all the stamps of this issue, with genu- ine cancellations are of great.rarity, especially when found on letters or postcards. According to Mr. Manjeley the information on'l kop. perforated and imperforate Russian stamps' overprinted. South Rr.: a-100 rubles" or "Youg Rossii-100 rublei" is very meager. It is nece .-' in any case to emph;iase that Mr. Manjeley categorically confirms that these. stamps did not appear at the post office in Sevastopol up to the evacuation of Crimea, which began on November 11, 1920 (new style). Knowing S. Manjeley as an exceptionally honest and serious philatelist we must refer to his statement with full confidence . I state this because these two stamps and all issues bade in Constant. nople (Russian Army Post or Pochta. Rusakoi Armii) are creation of one indi V'.... dual, who busied himself during these 'terrible days with preparing these r-w issues for personal gain. His excuse was, that he was serving the interests of the post office and 'enriching the treasury of the Government of South Russia. Clever combinations devised and produced by this person, brought him great gain, and because of his important position in the service, it was very easy for him to gain confidence of his superiors, and later, of the phila-. . telists and dealers of Western Europe, whom he widely fooled. without any sign of conscience. In view of the fact that the history of those emissions is closely knit.with the activities of this "great creator" his name will be re- ferred to in this article as Mr. "XV. (This person is no longer alive). To add importance "to the 100 ruble issue of South Russia, Mr. X reiae: news that several'days before the evacuation of Crimea these stamps were rk- livered to the post office, that they were sold to the public and that thny were used fcr correspondence. I have an original draft, written by his h..., of an article, prepared for publication, in which efforts are made to g;i a false history of these stamps. Along with above drcft, I have other docA':.:- genuine, and in approved copies, concerning 1920-21 years. These documea.i.:: allow us to got a more accurate picture and to draw definite conclussion.; On October 20, 1920 the first all department. i meeting for planning and producing postal emissions was hold in Sevastopol under the chairmanship of the head of Governmental Affairs (Upravlenie Dolami Pravitelstva), E. E. Tkhorjevski, Representetives of various departments were present, and t.;e minutes of the meeting were taken by Mr. X, a former high official of th governments J. number of questions was discussed; possibility of sale of t- supplies of Ukrainian and Soviet stamps, ordering of new stamps. ordering c-f smaller size revenue stamps (it was decided to place such an order at th; Feodosia branch of Ekspeditsia Zagotovlenia Gosudarstvennikh Bumag, but l..i. #55 Paga & probably was not carried out), announcing a competition for a design of new stamps (decided to postpone this) and finally at the suggestion of Mr. X the question of revaluing the stamps of old designs by overprinting,'and of re- alizing the income from their,sale abroad. The last suggestion was accepted and Mr. X was empowered with the mis- sion of accomplishing its with the selling provision of the order changed to read "realization of the income on the Russian market and. abroad". To ful- fill this directive, Mr. X requested from the postal authorities in Crimea information as to the supplies of Russian amps on hand. I have the reply from the head of the Sevastopol Postal Telegraph Office, No. 7958, dated October 27/November 9, 1920 with the inclusion of the list of stamps on har, from 1 to 70 kop. and 10 rubles (2,780 stamps) and 1,659,100 stamps of 35 kop. In this interesting document we find data that the postal department gave for various stamps, namely 4new type, long (5, 10, 15, 35 and 70 kop.) and "new type, square (5, 10 and 35 kop.)1'; We must guess about which stamps they are speaking, and it is difficult to figure- out, since the forma- of Russian Imperial and Denikin stamps was the same, and neither one was oblong or square. At this time Mr. X turned to the Typography -tached to the High Command (Glavnoe Komandcvanie), located on Nakhimrov Boulevard in Sevastopol, where a comparatively large number of various proofs of overprints on postal and postal savings stamps of Russia, as well as on stamps of "United Russiao or tEdinnaya Rossia" of General Denikin were prepared under his supervision. The overprint consisted of "South Russia" or "Youg Rossii" and new values, which on stamps from 1 to 70 kop. were 10, 15, 25s 50, 100, 200, 400 and 500 rubles. They tried to preserve the similarity of numerals between the old and the new values as much as possible, for example the 15 ruble overprint S was applied to 15 kop. value, 500 rubles to 5 kop, and 700 rubles to 7 ruble value, and so on. The color of. the overprints was black cn yellow and red stamps and red on blue and green stamps. For some unknown reason the bottom stamp or stamps of blocks and vertical pairs was without overprints. Some of the blocks and vertical pairs had wide sheet margins on which were printed the markings of the typography and the signature of the super- visor in ink, which certified that the overprints were genuine and were made under the direction of the Commission on October 29P 1920. A small selection of the proofs of the overprint was taken by the Commission for a showing before'the meeting of the Council of Ministers for selection .and acceptance and which were to serve as specimens for printing new values in large quantities. All other proofs, in great variety were taken from the Typography by Mr. X, as if to be sold in England and France, to the dealers, as added revenue to the treasury. These proofs were actually taken abroad, but only after the evacuation, in personal baggage of Mr. X. I believe the readers have already guessed that the treasury received nothing, ahd that they were sold as personal possessions of Mr. X. In the beginning of November 1920, constant fall in the value of the ruble proved that the former rate of 5 rubles for an ordinary letter was insufficient, and an emergency measure was necessary to issue stamps with values of 100 rubles, which was the rate for ordinary mail at that time. Page 6 # 55 For this purpose an order was given to select a 10 ruble die to which another zero could be added.- This Die was used to overprint 20,000 imper- forate and 10,000 perforated.1 kop. stamps. The overprint, applied read "USouth Russia 100 rubles" or "Youg Rossii 100 rubloi". I am not sure that the stated number of stamps issued corresponds wir', the. actual quantity issued. As this issue was prepared under the super', of Mr. X, the fact that his offer of sale of now issues abroad was not shelved, and corresponded with the time of gr noed for new values at th- post office, I personally think that more th .. ,,000 of the above stamps wcze issued. I think that this number was thought up by him exclusevoly tc interest foreign stamp firms, by showing that it was a limited issue. 1e must not forget that the list from Sevastopol Post.Office indicating the supplies of various values on hand, showed 29,700 perforated and 320,600 imperforate 1 kop. stamps; an ample supply on hand. Overprints of this issue were made by typography, and there are a gra;. number of varieties: letters of different types and height, difference in spacing between letters and numerals, inverted, double, overprints shift3:i in: various directions, numeral 6 instead of letter "Russian b" in vcori "rubloi" or "rubles" (one stamp, in-a sheet), etc., etc. Some of these varieties roe accidental, others were prepared purposely; there exists r:' -- a stamp with numeral : 10 instead of 100 but if we consider it - error (forgotten zerc) but only on condition of finding it in a pair wii.. normal stamp having numeral U 100 ". Single examples of 10 rubles overprint on I kop., also on other values, are proofs of which I spoke earlier, and they were made on various stamps and various values, 5,090 i.-: all. iL1 work was done in the oarly.part of November .1920. Further fate of these stamps is clouded and mixed up. Mr. X himself, while abroad, spread rumors that the entire issue. was given to Sevastopco Post Office which allegedly divided them among various local-post offices and that they weor sold to the public and served for prepayment of correspondencee. Howevow Manjeley states the opposite. and I think that the collectors saw thoes 1.:.- the first time abroad. Mr. X also stated that a part of this issue waR *`;- by the Chief of Militdrj. Codission, for del -r to the Yalta Post Of .c, whore he was going to visit his family prior .: evacuation. He was attJ :k whilo enroute, robbed and then killed, thus t.o stamps were lost. This is a very strange statement. In those days when the evacuati.: imminent any day9 When Crimoats fate hung. in balance, it is improbable Jha. Postal Department would busy itself with supplying post offices with- rw- stamps, especially with the cooperation of a, travelling military men niY:. accidental or unscheduled' trips. There are serious evidences which pc-:'-. Mr. X's acquisition of a part of this issue, and that he in order to h.-i this fact, ho explained it by the attack, murder" and theft. The only i --I is that a small part of this issue was taken abroad during the evacuate ,': Crimea and wound up in Cattaro on transport "Sedjota.; From there they -...o ordered sent to Constantinople and were sold to stamp firms. The mor.-y - ived was sent to the Russian Post Office of the ARMY in Constantinoplc or the organization of the post. # 55 Pa This is the history in brief of this issue, and as much of truth as can be determined in a question clouded with incorrect information. We can con- elude with full confidence that these stamps belong to the category of "8 prepared for use, but not issued and that not one of them served for prepayment of correspondence. Thus on November 11, 1920 an order was signed for evacuation of Crimea. Army, Government,and its establishments and refugees arrived in Constanti- nople. Among the evacuated possessions of the treasury were two leather bags with Ukrainian stamps on transport w Sedjet u, 30,000 Ukrainian stamps of 10 shagiv in the hands of Mr. X. Also several hundred thousand of Ukrainian stamps were on steamship Rion ", likewise going to Cattaro. Besides tho-a in Constantinople, in the hands of stamp dealers and certain other people were huge stocks of Imperial Russian, Soviet and Ukrainian stamps, carried out of Russia prior to evacuation .by private individuals. In Constantinople, from May 1920 functioned Russian Post introduced by "I Conference of Organizations for Aid to Russian Refugees or Soveschania Organizatsii Pomoschi Ruskim Bejentsam attached to the Russian Diplomatir Mission. I shall translate from French, the description of the function of this post as stated-in Letter No. 851 of the Russian Diplomatic Represent- ative, A. Neratov, dated March 11, 1921. This letter was an answer to a question from the High Commissioners of England, France and Italy in occ- upied Constantinople, in connection with the pru:t of Turkish government against the activity of the Russian Post on TurkiU2h territory. We quote:- "1' This bureau was established in May 1920 after first evacuation of Odessa and Novorosiisk for the purpose of aiding Russian refugees, and this was done with the knowledge of the Allied Command. Function of the Bureau was as follows: It accepts correspondence from Russian refugees to addresses within Turkey and abroad and then turns them over to the corresponding foreign post offices and to Turkish Post Office. Ordinary letters are accepted free, however on registered mail the Bureau collects rates equivalent to those of foreign posts and turns the receipts over, in full, to the foreign post office transmitting the mail. Letters addressed to refugee camps, situated on San Stephano RR. Line, namely Camps Bernadotte, Lann, Canrcber, Zaityn-Burnu, Arno and Chataldzha are turned over to French Commandant of Station Syrkedji. Letters addressed to Camp Tuzla are turned over to British Headquarters, while those addressed to Lemnos, Gallipoli, Bizerte and French Hospitals Pashe Osadsha and Ildyz are turned over to the sector 502 of French Headquarters (near the tunnel), " On the other hand, all foreign posts. and the Ottoman Post turn over to the Bureau of the Russian Post majority of the correspondence addressed to Russian refugees, and the Bureau delivers them to refugees or..holds them until they are called for. This way the refugees know where to receive the mail which has arrived for them". Further in the document is a discussion of various problems arising concerning the correspondence, with which the B-irear helps the refugees. Bureau also addresses letters, makes investigations, gives directions, and etc. Page 8 AK" ;. S In my collection are two covers, that passed. through this Br.eai, originating in Evpatoria, Crimea (one. dated September 20, 1920 and the other a little later) and addressed to a,Russian refugee camp on the Island of Lemnos. Both of the letters are without stamps, and were carried to Constantinople by private .people who turned them over to the Bureau. This Bureau sent them-to Lemnos via Sector. 502 of French Headquarters, which placed on the reverse side of each letter their markings, the round blue- violet cancellation- bears in the circle words Conference of OrganizAti.', for Aid to Russian Refugees and in the center .Russian Post.- Constat_ :.-. cple ". These cancellations may be found also on covers with foreign or Russian stamps, but in all cases they are of great rarity. Almost with the arrival of the Army..Government establishments and refugees into Constantinople, and upon formation of the refugee camps, MK.-. again becomes active and begins to influence C"' of the Financial and Refugee Sections with the idea"of issuing new 3 to raise money for t.e.* treasury. In his reports he offers either to istute new stamps or to over- print the stamps of the old regime with the new values. He cites the ex- amples of the little Latin American Republics and promises immediate inco:n for treasury of 5 to 10 million franks, saying that the operation can be repeated several times. In conclusion he writes Tc prevent speculation with stamps, and tc insure the greatest.possible income,to the treasury, it is imperative the.:- we establish a strict control and watch and-maintain certain measures, es- pecially suited for such issues .f..stamps and for sale of them abroad. ,' example, it is necessary thatthe assigned.part of the issue for sale abr-.ad be sent there, prior to the sale of remainders in the p6st offices t9 pariate individuals. On the other hand in view of the fact that stamps, issued specially for speculative purposes, do not have any price on the philatelic market, it is important that during the sale abroad we present all eviden9es of their bohafide use by the post (copies of order of issuance, covers with cancellations on stamps, accurate information about the quantities of stc'vnse issued, etc.) All of the preparations must be conducted in utmost secrecy.. STypographical expencos of production, of the new values on the sw.:-:. and travelling -expenses of the comandeered person ordered to sell star:-; abroad are next to nothing as compared with the income derived from the .-:.' of stamps. To protect the treasury it is imperative that the person pla.--' in charge is familiar with philately and that he be placed in under the supervision of the Government Control in Paris. " In other documentary notes we find details' .-othcds of pritintg, -' sale, again we see repetition of statements th lis project will brine :-. huge income and that Mr. X seems to be the most Logical and suited person for producing the issue and the logical one for the trip to Western Eui ..-c Thus these documents clearly show that the original idea of the issue w-; speculative in nature, based on the promise that the people responsible I:- approval of this venture can not,distinguish the true motives of the au'.1.:'. of this project. As to the use of a part of the stamps-for payment of poc-- . of the refugee correspondence, this was placed on. a secondary plano and ..*.-:: not seem to:be the main problem in creation of this issue. #55 Pate C Having received permission and wide powers, Mr. X entered into an agree. ment with Vassan M. Essaian in Galata, with whom was formulated the following arrangement (orginals of all these documents are in my collection). Mr. Essaian sells to Russian Government 300,000 mint Russian stamps of various values and agrees to make on these a lithographic overprint "Post of the Russian Army" or Pochta Russkoi Armii and new values in rubles. As payment for these stamps and labor, Mr. Essaian receives 10% of all over- printed stamps, he agrees to complete all work in 3 weeks. Agreement was signed on December 17, 1920 by both sides, and also covered failures or breach of contract, control problems, and destruction of lithographic stor-:. at the end of work, etc., etc. After a short time, a new agreement was reached on February 23, 192', with Mr. Essain, for issuance of a second series with "Russian Post" over- print and new values in rubles: but this time the work was done on Russian and Ukrainian stamps, belonging to the Russian Government, thus Mr. Essaie- received only 2% of these stamps as payment. These are the facts about these two issuc; After their appearance, their history follows two paths, that which actually occurred and that as Mr.. X tried to present to the West European philatelic firms. For the latter, were prepared various documents, copies of lists, advertising explanations and other papers, lists, and bookkeeping records, in which some things are magnified, some are minimized, truth is twisted with phantasy, and with out and out lies. To sort this out is a difficult task, and in the continuation of my article-in the following issue of the journal I shall endeavor to give more detailed data, about the stamps and their use as postage'on correspon- dence. After the preparation of overprints, lithographic stones were destroyed in presence of the members of Control Commission, and two documents were prepared about this. On April 10, 1921, having received visas, Mr. X left for one of the West European capitals and carried with him 1. A huge supply of stamps of both issues 1' for sale on the foreign markets, which was to be income for the treasury ". 2. Parts of these lithographic stones and a considerable supply of mint stamps, Russian and Ukrainian. Armed with all this, and having the skill and recommendations, as wall as documents pertaining to this post and powers delegated from the Governmtne in question, Mr. X after a short time busied himself in the beginning w.fth making n additional printings of these overprints, aided by the pieces of the lithographic .stones, and later when they became useless, he prepared a:. stones and fabricated forged overprints in such large quantities that he swamped the market and caused the prices for the series to collapse completely. At the same time Mr. X begun to make inverted overprints, incomplete ones (minus the value) and overprints on stamps on which they could not h-ve occurred. I shall note such phantasies created by Mr. X as 5 ruble Jubilee series 1913, certain stamps with Ukrainian tridents, not prepared in the original series, stamps of Russian Levant, of 35p. on 3 rub. 50 kop., and Page 10 #55 70p. on 7 rubles, and as I have heard stamp of 50p. on 5 ruble issue of 1913, on stamps of Levant. Mr. X at first made a forged overprint of 35p. and 70 pistres ( made very carelessly and roughly ) and later he placed his own false overprint of Pochta Russkoi Armii 20,000 rublei or Post of Russian Army 20,000 rubles ". The overprint of 50 piastres on 1913 Jubilee stamp is also forged, but I do not know its source. We should also note forgeries, prepared by Mr. X, of the Levant stamps of 1913-14, i.e. the 50p. on on 5 rubles and 100p. on 10 rubles. In the beginning,Mr. X bought up everywhere the genuine stamps with these overprints,.and placed upon tha forged Pochta Russkoi Armii 10,000 or 20,000 rubles u. Afterwards he busied himself with making a forgery of Levant overprint, placing them on the market either in that state or with the added Russian Army cverpri-t. However, these forgeries can be easily det e without any added expertzation, since the genuine stamps of Levar:- ve the following feati1t.: Overprint of lOOp. on 10 rubles is made on the Russian stamp of 1906, on pap. with vertical laid lines, and 50p on 5 rubles on stamps without chalky lies, made especially for Levant, which does not exist without, overprint. Mr. X however used for overprinting stamps of Russia of 5 and 10 rubles with cha2ky network, which is the main feature of the forgeries. Besides these and other phantasies and forgeries, it is interesting to note the following: 3r. 50 k. of 190/ issue of Russian Offices.in China, or: which the red overprint W KITAI was carefully taken off, and a false " 35 piasteres and Pochta Russkoi Armii 20,000 rubles was applied. Most likely various other combinations, not encountered by me as:yet exist.' Besides the manipulations with uncancelled stamps, Mr. X prepared a great deal of cancelled material, including such prepared entire, as letters and post cards. For this purpose he used certain genuine oencellors of various camps, carried out by him from Constantinople. He also prepared a series of his own cancellers with names of not only the camps where the pci- functioned but also of those camps where the post did not exist. Those letters wore sold originally singly as rarities, and at high prices, later or in lots of 100 each. We can state with. confidence that fully 90% of all existing letters and cancelled stamps of the Russian Army, are forgeries :- Mr. X who achieved in this field a great superiority and lived off these forgeries and creations many years, until his death several years ago. He also made forgeries of Mongolian stamps, colored pink the common semi-postal 3 kop. (perf. 13-) 1915 of Russia issued on white paper, and also colored blue the 10 kop. value of thesa same- oe, plus making other various combinations. Twc questions now arise. 'Iter all this, do the stamps of the u Ru-.., Army" 1920-21 deserve collecting, and is it possible to tell genuine fror. *: forgeries. Of course one can collect what he desires, but he must be sure that stamps are genuine. Out of both "Russian Army" issues printed in Constar" - nople there are 50 to 60 varieties which were issued in quantities of 25 t- 100 each. 12 complete collections were presented to high government offf'cial and approximately 20 to 25 were sold at face to representatives of stamzr . #55 Pag6 L: foreign collectors and officials of Post Office and other departments. From the above figures it is clear that there are only a few complete collections in existence, and that many of the rarities in -ids of collectors are forgeries. Stamps of these issues can be separated into four categories: 1. Genuine overprints made by M. Essaian. 2. Forgeries of Mr. X made by using of pieces of lithographed stones, from which Mr. Essaian printed the original issue. 3. Forgeries of later date, prepared by Mr. X. 4. Forgeries of other sources, including those produced by typography. Expertization of overprints is possible in certain instances, especit.li, when we speak of blocks and large parts of sheets, and very difficult and often impossible when we deal with single stamps.. Thus I personally feel that it is possible either to seriously specialize in stamps of these issue. going into detailed study, trying to break down blocks and parts of shecet-., or to satisfy oneself with several examples and not be tempted by those occasions when one is offered a general collection. I especially advise all to be careful of letters and post cards with these stamps cancelled, as thoreare but a few genuine pieces of corresporldr::. in existence, while the products of Mr. X are numerous in hundreds. The issues which could have been most interesting, in spite of the speculative character, is completely spoiled and rendered valueless by tha remorseless dealings and actions of this man who from the start betrayed the trust placed in him. -to be continued- ooooooooooooooooo0000 EDITORIAL COMMENTS. Second Installment of the above article will carry detailed data. The-Rossica Journal is disclaiming any responsibility to any statements voiced in the above article. All of the ideas and statements are those of the author Mr. A. Rosselevitch. ooooo0000000000ooooooooo ooooooooocooooooooo0000 0000000000000000000oo oo000oo00000ooooooo00000ooooooo 0 0 o A few copies of Rossica Journal in English are still available, au, o may be purchased from out Editor, Dr. Salisbury. o o We are interested in receiving articles printed on Russia and .el-o o ted countries in other journals, which we can use for reference. o 0 0 o Of great interest to us are various philatelic publications which o o appeared in Soviet Russia. c o0 o The Editors r P 20000OOOge00 1OOOOOO2OO2OOOOOOO002000000 0000 000 00000 0000 Page 12 f THE LIADY MESSEQGER POST ISSUE OF 1941 by Dr. C. do Stackolberg Recently I have been in correspondence with Regierungarat Dr. Hermann Schultz of Erlangei, Germany, the greatest expert and well known expertizer of the Pskov Town Post Issues. These stamps were issued by the German Occ- upation Authoritiesof Pskov in 1941to 1942 and are listed in German catalogs of Michol, Mueller, etc. In one of his letters, he mentioned to me also the issue of the Messenger Post of Liady, of which I have never heard. To my request for further details-Dr. Schultz was kind enough to supply me with the follow- ing information. In the autumn of 1941 German Armies had occupied the Southern part the Leningrad Oblast and had practically surrounded the old capital of Russia. The Administrative Officer (Kreiskommandcnt) of the Liady Count,, which is situated approximately in the middle c 'o triangle between t:e towns of Gdov, Pskov and Luga in the Osmino S- .. received the authority from the local Field Commander in Luga to print and to issue two stamps for the Local Postal Messenger Service, ho had organized. To this end three hundred of 1 pf. Hindenburg stamps, as well as three thousand of 1 pf. Hitler Ostland stamps wore overprinted "LIADY" and a new value "60S in blo.k This issue can be compared with the well-known labels of the "Messeon-.- Post of the X German Army of the Minsk area in 1918. (Romeko 1927, p, e. Al td A3). Dr. Schultz, who seems to have been at that time a high official of %he S German Civilian ACb-ii tration..in Pskov tells me that the communications in that area were so unsafe, owing to extensive activities of the Partisans, that Licdy could be reached safely only in armoured cars or by plane, he him- self has often flown on Governmonit business to Liady in his small two sweater "StCcr1-" plano. When the Soviet troops finally overran Li.dy, the whole pcrsonell of - German Civilian Administration there vas tcken prisoner and soon afteirwur. hanged in Leningrad. Oil- tho Kroiskommandant is still live and lives ir Hesso, Germany as at the time Liady was taken, he happened to be away cr. sick leave in Gcrrnany. It is known that of the original issue of Liady only 30 Hindenburg stamps with gum, 150 Hitler stamps with gum, and 150 Hitler stamps with, t gum presently exist. The 150 Hitler stamps without gum, lost the gum whc-. they wre buried for a time in Soviet Russia for reasons Dr. Schultz dos, not mention. The stamps wore valid for only a short F):'.d: From the autumn of 1-! to the Summer of 1942. An extensive article by Dr. Schultz on the SG stamps will appear i: ' forthcoming, October 1958, issue of the well-known German stamp journal .- : "Kichelrundscheau :The stamps will appear for the first time in the Miiul". Catalog of 1960, as the 1959 catalog has already been printed. The Muo` :-. Gorman Sprcialied Cr.+-J g h -s Iaready listed them for several years. #55 Pagi U The illustration shows the two stamps in my possession. Dr. Schultzs well-known guarantee is stamped on the back. I understand that the dealers in Germany are presently buying up these stamps at about $15 for the Hindenburg stamp, at $8 for the Hitler stamp with gum and $4 for the Hitler stamp without gum. 0000000000000 EDITORIAL COMMENTS These stamps are listed on P. 244 of 1958 Mueller Specialized Catalog:. and are priced at 75M. (Hindenburg) and 45M. (Hitler) mint. They are not priced cancelled. The quantities issued are given as 500 and 1,000. Dat': of issue is given as December 1, 1941. Besides Liady and Pskov, Mueller lists 3 stamps issued on October 18, 1941 in Lu-., ooooooooooooo oo000coooo000000000000oo0000oooo000000ooooooooo ocoocooooocoooco0000000000o o Your WANT-LISTS have a good chance of being filled from my SIECIALIZED .o 0 r o stock of RUSSIA -----fzarist and Soviet ---mint--used--errors, also o o 0 o varieties. New Issue Service of USSR and other Foreign Countries;late o o Soviet Covers. I will be interested to learn what interests you. c 0 0 O 0 o L E S T E R S. GLASS S(.S.D.A., APS SPA1 o o o o 0 o P. 0. Box 36646, Wilshire-La Brea Station, Los Anoeles 36. California.o o 0 00ooo0000000000 000000000 00000O000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 OOOOOOOOOOOOOCC700 00 OOO O)OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'OOO 0 ME PHILATELIC LITERATURE RICE LIST 0 0 52 pages, just out 0 0 O 0 25c deductable from first order. 0 O 0 F R ITT Z B I L L I G o 168-39 Highland Ave 0 Jamaica 32, N. Y. C 0 0 MONTHLY PUBLIC AUCTIONS .0 O 0 Over 2500 lots and 28 photopages. Covering most fields of philately.O 0 Catalogues free on request 0 0 0 BILLIG & RICH 55 West 2nd. Street, New York 36 N. Y. o 00000000000000000000OOOOC000)Oooc OC00000OOC00000000000'00000000000 05 Page 14 #55 T A N N O-U T 0 V A A SU R V EY by L. Cronin & W. S. E. Stephon (Coztinued fom 53. Page 18 THE NATIVE ISSUES Before considering these, a small dose ot history is first administcer-.? On Novombor 24, 1926, the Fourth GroatHuruldan (Assembly) doclarod Touvw bo a national republic and a definitive constitution was adopted. It wa probably at this time that the native namo of the capital was changed to "Kyzyl Khoto" or "Kyzyl" ("Rod Townu and "Rod" respectively). The populat; of the country at the time was around 70,000, of vhich 12,000 wore Russ: -.. Kyzyl had about 3,000 inhabitants in 1927, increasing to 3,200 in 1931 ani 10,000 in 1936; no further figures are available, but it appears that the. Touvans are still in the majority throughout the area. Water transport v the main link originally with the outside world there wore also roadr \.: Minusinsk in Siberia and Uliasutai in Mongoli., ilo a highway to AbakL.:. v&e corploted in 1936. Since 1953 at least, Kyzyl has boon libkod by air wit' Abakan and Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. Getting back to matters plilatclic, it scms that the omission of ra:'. stamps was one of th6 results of the political events which' took placo i.n 1926. Although tho date of the first stamp issue is given as being in th-: saom year, it is possible that the supplies did Aot roach Touva until oa<- in 1927, as the earliest covers known arc nll from a batch of registered letters addressed to various officials of the ll Russian Philatelic As,.- ciation, cancolled Kyzyl 8.2.27 (Fig. 2) and roachinp Moscow 24 to 25 dy.-' later. Although-philatolic, they are most interesting as the addresses arz- typed in English, a Tcuvan'translation being added by pen-or brush in tx.o archaic Uighur script, while on arrival in Moscow tho sorting cldrk added a Russian translation to facilitate delivery. An unregistered cover with the issue and cancellation is also known addressed to Harbin leaving Kyzyl on on April 5, 1927, passing through linusinsk 11 days later and arriving orn May 2. In addition, a forgod cover of this issue has recently been seone +. bears a handstampod throo-line address inviolot, reading "Jda Baidhor/P. 734/Moscow USSR", and it is frakrod with 1, 2, 5, and 8 kop. values, cmi::. I with two strikes of a ford Kyzyl marking (Figure 9), the diameter bei::p 34mm., the word "Kizil" /rnm. high, 13mm. long at top and- l11-nm. long at bottom, while the word TOUV-. is 3mm. high, ll--m. long at top and 13mr:, lo-: at bottom. The'impossible and indistinct date appears to road 20.11.2 , and although the cover is unsealed, it boars a genuine MOSKVA/9.4.27/16. POCT. OTD. backstamp which was added favour. The issue itself is of interest as the Mo-- 'ian text is inscribed. :- the obsoloteUighur alphabet, itself the parent -:ongol vertical systeo- of writing. The panel at the top contor shows th _.oroviations "Bu. Na. T'. Ti." or tBugude Fairamdalho Tannou Tiva", roughly translated as "Gonoral Union of Tannou Touva". The panels top left and right road "Burok mirkc1-' "postage stamp", whilo those at the bottom 1-ft and right have the abbr. -si. ions umca or mongoo" (mungs or kopoks) and "tu" for (tugrugs or rubles,' S#55 Pe- - The kopek values are in shoots of 100 (10x10), comb perforated 13-, guide marks consisting of a circle with a dot in the center, being present betwoon the 5th, and 6th. stamps in all four margins of the shoots in the colors of the stamps. The three top values are perforated 101. There appear to have been two distinct printings of this issue, mint copies of the original issue having white crackly gum. As those were origin: ally sold on the basis of gold ruble, the full sot cost around $7,00 (aboft 30/- then) in the late 1920s, which was a lot of money in those days. In 1931 "Gibbonts Stamp Monthly' complained that supplies were being offered 1i Paris at much cheaper prices, and as the colors wore different, it was cE- sumed that another printing had been made. Mint copies of these latter hr white smooth gum. Some time after the appearance of 1927 surcharges, (#11-14), "Gibbon's Stamp Monthly" reported that 5,000 of each value had been prepared. As thea: do not seem to be scarce, it is probable that .-- upplomontary printing cxi' here as well. The original issue was apparent, on the basic stamps with crackly gum, bright shiny inks almost like lacquer being employed for sur- charging. Nos. 11 & 12 are known with inverted surcharges and #14 with sur- charge doubled. All values show varying strengths of inking, as they were handstampod. Covers frankod with this issue appear to be rare; those seen are registered and addressed as before by typewriter to the All Russian Philatelic Association, and showing at left, four printed vertical lines of Mongol script. Details are as follows:- a. A cover hand-made from native laid paper, franked with #11, strip of 3 of #18 and a pair of #23, cancelled Kizil 30.X.27 (see illustration and arriving in Moscow 26 days later. b. As above, but franked with a vertical pair of #12. c. Blue cover with pair of #13 and a single of #14. From the above, it appears that the surcharges were issued some time during or after April 1927, duo to shortages of certain values of the first issue, the 1927 pictorials apparently coming to the rescue in October. The supplementary printing of the surcharges is on stamps with smooth white gum, having a rather dull and smudged appearance, with the inks peno- trating the paper. Copies seen have SFA guarantee marks on the backs, and c^ the surcharge measurements agree in all respects, it could be assumed that they were executed with the original wooden chops, presumably to cope with the demand from philatelists. The designs for the 1927 pictorials (#15 to #28) wore adapted by Olga Fodorovna Amosova from ornaments, household ut .ils and native scenery observed by her during Professor Bunak's oxpou .Ion to Touva in 1926, in which she took part. This set has white crackly gum and is quite scarce in cnploto mint condition. It is possible that there wore further printi--s of the five small values for the packet trade, as they have been seen wi:h white smooth gum, giving the paper a rather oily and porous look. Page 16 #/5 S These small values are comb-perforated 12, being in shoots of 100, consisting of four pans of 25 soparatod by wide margins and guttors. Tho shoot odges and horizontal gutters have thick colored lines in the colors of the stamp. Tho next throo values (#20 to 22) are always comb-porforatod 12-x12, while the balance of the set is normally lian-perforatod 10-. The l kep. (#23) is especially interesting bocauso of the following compound perfora- tions which aro also found thoroon:- a. 1O at bottom x 1C at loft x 10 at right. b. 10 at bottom x 10 at loft x 10 at right. c. 10- at bottom x 10 at loft x 10 ar right. As those varieties are similar to those found on Russian stamps of the period, it.appears that they resulted from the saoO method of .production. The checkers at GOZIAK (State Printing Works, Moscow) apparently found some porf. 10- shoots of this value with margins mistakenly loft imperforato, anr those wore apparently finished off on the porf. 10 machines. Thus the mrr- ginal triangles would receive a 10 perforation a. t-hor loft or right, causing varieties (a) or (b), depending on which .:gin of the shoot was originally imperforate. In the case whore adrjcort margins on the same shoot wore imporforate, correction would result in the trianglo at the corner of the shoot receiving the 10 porf. at both loft and right, giving rise to var- ioty (a). The 50 kop. (#26) also exists porf. 10 on all sides, while a copy has boon found with a compound perforation: 10 at top and bottom and lot at sides. Inscriptions on this sot are in English and Mongolian, the latter giving the namo of the country as "TivaU end adding the words USiudan" or "Postage", "nmo" for the kopok values and "tuU for the rublo. As with the first issue, this series has tho star and lozongo watermark, which is also found on Russian postal stationery of that period. -to be continuod- 00O000000000 LETTER FROM- THE TILT OF WAR-CAUCASUS 185. by Kurt Adlor I have a letter in my collection, written in Gcrman, in 1854 from the theatre of war in the Caucasus. Letters of this war aro ruch rarer than the Crimoan letters. Thoro was no Field Post of course, then in the Caucasus, during those hostilities. The cover has the oval postmark Iz Tiflisa c- vlonc (sent from Tiflis) and a wax soel Dnozhnoy....... (word illegible) bo something like correspondence, Tifliskci Guborn.poctovcy kont. ("Lis Gubornia Post Office). It c,- o has the transit rhomboid postmark (probably port): St, Petorsburg 1854.X.21 and an illegible sm-ll circular postnmrk (probc-bly arrival postmark in Stuttgart. The front has in rod print Rocomandirt onclosod in'a wavy rod #55 Page 17 frame, rectangular in shape, and an Aus Russland. It wnwet to Baron von Ulrichhausen, Ordinance. Officer of His Royal Highncss the Crown Prince in Stuttgart. I have rarely road a more vivid description of Caucasus and of the theatre of war. Alexandropol rr. October 1854 Dear old follow: Just when I wanted to write you a letter for such a long time, I received your letter of September 17th. that took only a short time (ono month only) to reach mo hero at the end of the world. It will seem funny to you to receive a letter from mo written on the shore or Arpatshay (the river which forms the border betwoon .Russia and the Asiatic part of Turkey).1 .felt the same way when I received your letter, and the oxclamatico "'tis strange" was formed in my mouth when I saw your goruotlicho craw's foet (which, I by the way, can reciprocate in no less amount. To free you from the wrong idea -.by the way that I am still in Potorsburg. I want to toll you in short that I succooded finally, with the help of my good and doar Grand Duko, and Successor to the throne, to be sent to the thoatro of war and to the Army of Duke Bobutoff whore I have boon promised a command of 3 mixod squadrons of line cosacks, with all authority and plenary power. The Emperor has dismissed me in the utmost possible gracious way. Ho ontrustod me, during a half hour conversation, with important oral missions to Bobutoff, which I shall not disclose to you. He has, furthermore, given mo 12,000 rubles to be distributed.among the wounded soldiers of the corps of Kars and Bayazet. So I sat down once again in my.tarantass, flew through half a quarter of the globe in 12 days and arrived in good shape in Tiflis, after cutting through my old, dear Caucasus with its raging rivers, its masses of rocks and ice, its picturesque figures of warriors, its neck breaking roads, and its good memo- ries. Wherever I came, to fortress or stanitsa, there arose a big hello from my old acquaintances, so that my heart jumped in my body. In Tiflis, whore I stayed 6 days, there were dinners, jubilations, and parties my honor, so that I was almost glad to got out of thou again. Now, the good country is rather far behind me, and my eyes abovo the fortress cl.,-' in, in front of my window, revel in the view of a desolate mountainous stce. without a tree, without a bush, in the swirling twisters which seem to be connoctod to the sky and soem to be on roaring walks, and in the immonso vultures with their long naked nocks with white frills on them, that are sitting on carions of camels or buffaloos, parched by thirst, signs of the caravan roads from Persia. There is a heat of shirt sleeve dimensions, although the country which lies 8,000 foot above the sea lovel is supposed to be furiously cold d-ring the winter, and although the snow is smiling at us from the mountain ridge, of the Kara- Dagh (above which, far away, the silvery Ararat lifts its head). The camp of Duke Bobutoff where I spent throo days lies 20 verst from herc, on Turkish soil, on two bald hills between which two poor brooklets are flowing; it is a sad, desolate country. No trees to be soon for a distance of 70 square versts, sand, sand, sand and chalky rocks, and a boredom to hicr the bucket. But along the horizon of the camp, to the right and to the lefl so near that one almost can shoot there, there lie the glorious fields of Bash-Kadikfar and Kuyuk-Dara and somewhat farther away, only 40 vorsts--- Page 18 #S lies Kars, from which the Turk, after his last defeat does not dare to stick out his nose. This creates a big "crovo-coour" on the part of tho'whole *detachment which is burning with desire to attack. But Fabius Bobutoff, instead, is promising them winter quarters in Aloxandrcpol(Gri). The little detachment is dashing and snart. It is a pleasure, it has plenty to live off, gets it rrom tfa surrounding Turkish villages. It counts at the most 10 sick people por regiment, It would load a life like in a fool's paradise if the hay wasn'trathor bad and the wood unattainably expensive. Our cavalry offers a picturesque sight, a colorful mixture of Georgians, Tatars, in short Asiatics of all kinds. Among them, especially the Kurds. on their little fiery horses with embroidered saddle-cloth and broad stirrut: for slippers; with their multicolored embroidered jackets, their oll-high turbans, wide pants reminiscent of women skirts, long lances adorned with a pommel of black ostrich feathers, and with round shields hanging down from behind their loft shoulders, offer a picturesque oriental sight. It is a wild but colorful sight. When I arrived in the camp unexpectedly there way jubilation among my old comrades. Everybody vied with each other to give mE a notable welcome. One of them gave me a'captured Turkish tent, another a superb white charger, in short, I had to tear myself away by force to ex- ecute the commission of my ever so gracious monarch. so I am loafing about, in hospitals, for almost ten days already, visiting and questioning every wounded soldier, dividing the money in accordance with the gravity of their wounds. I am seeing a lot of disgusting and sad things, I am swallowing .a lot of stench, in one word, I am groping about in the dark, desolate and shadowy sides of our craft, stretching out my to' -s. By the way, the food is above ll praise. There is, notwithstanding masses of patients, such cleanliness, such order, and such a care at over; .-,onont that one has to look "for to find something like it. The poor devils arc porky, gay, and full of * enthusiasm for their Emperor when they answer my questions. During 2 months only 170 out of 1,200 wounded soldiers died. It is unbelievable what kinds of wounds can be soon: missing logs and arms, shattered lower jaws, faces that do not lock human any more. An officer who has 16 wounds from bullets, bayonets and sabers walks already in his room. A soldier whose thigh was shattered below the hip by a grape-shot has been declared s.v6d by his doctors. Day after to-morrow I am leaving for Erivan and Bayazet and shall, after finishing my err.nd, return to my detachment to .wait the resumption of the dance. Pleaso lay me to the feet of the Crownprince and Crownprincess and, if you find an occasion, toll them with what a grateful heart I'ofton think back of the grace and friendliness which they'bostowod on no. I come from too good a house and I am too little of a courtier not to fool doubly warm of their gonuino, true, natural kindnos and heartiness. Give my cordial regards to Borlichingon and Zeppelin, lay me to the foot of Frl. von Massonbach many times, recommend me to the graces of Frl. v. Ke-lden. Keep me in you heart and writo soon, To yours with his wholo heart, # Er 'ittgenstoyn. #55 Page 19 My address is: Poste restanto, Tiflis, Russio Asiatiquo, par St. Potersburg. I have the revolver with me. It fails more often than I -:ruld like; I think the English ones are yet better than the Stuttgart ones. It is rumored here (nothing officials known yet) that Austria has declared war against us. It is too infamous to be believed. 0000000000o000000000 RUSSIA. .SPEC I MEN S ST AMPS by J. V. Stuart RUSSIA S. G.l#52 tj63, horizontally laid paper. 3 kop. 14 kop. Imperforato blocks of 2 cor.ploto rows of ten 5 kop. 20 kop. stamps, with OBRAZETS in roe tractorss. 7 rubles Perforated strip of 5 st with CBRAZETS in rod characters. S. G. #75, on vertically laid paper. 70 kop. Perforated block of 10 stamps, with OBRAZETS in rod characters. S. G. #81 to #89, Charity Issue of 1905. 3 kop, perforated 13r:13, small characters 1-x11, largo characters 5 kop. 1212-, large characters Full rows of 8 stamps, 7 kop. 13x1)3, largo characters with OBRLZETS in rod characters. 1212- small characters 12x12-, large characters 10 kop. 13xl3-', small characters S. G. #124, etc., War charity of 1914. CBRiZETS in black on each stamp. White Same as 1915 paper, but singles, with OBJRAZETS in blue. 1917 Arms issue with chalky lines, imperforato. 1 kop. 4 kop. Blocks of 10 stamps, in 2 rows of 5 stamps. 2 kop. 5 kop. OBRLZETS in black, once on the two rows, with large 3 kop. characters. 1924-1925, Typographed,l4 x1T perforation, unw. :;arkod. 7 kop. soldier, strip of 5 stamps. CBRAZETS perforated (h6les). 5 rub., perforated strip of 3 stamps. CERAZTS perforated (holes). Page 20 * RUSSIAN OFFICES IN CHIN I. S. G. #1, atc. 1 kop. 3 kop. Imperforato blocks of 10, with CBRLZETS 2 kop. 5 kop. perforated (holos). 1 kop. 5 kop. Perforated blocks of 15, with CBRAZETS perforated 2 kop. (holos). Two lines on 3 rows of 5 stamps. 1910 Issueo with chalky lines. 1 kop. 20 kop. 50 kop. Porforatod blocks of 10 each, with 4 kop. 25 kop. 70 kop. CBRLZETS in full in one line over 2 rows of 7 kop. 35 kop. 5 stamps, perforat', -los). 1 rub. Same as above, pt on imporforate block of ton stamps. RUSSIAN LESV NT 1L8. horizontally Taid papor. 1 kop. 5 kop. Imporfcratod blocks of 10, with 4 characters of 2 kop. CBRAZETS in rod, on J.ach row of 5 stamps. 1903-1910 35 pi. on 3 rub. 50 kop. Perforated CBRAZETS in small bluo-green 70 pi. on 5 rub. characters, diagonal SW/NE. 35 pi. on 3 rub. 50 kop. ImIorforato block of 8, with CBiZETS in ond line on two rows of 4 stamps, perforated (holes). 1909 70 pi. on 7 rub. Inmorfornto block of 4 stamps, -GBRLZETS, part only, perforated vertically S to N (holes), 1913 10 pi. on 1 rub. Porforato! blocks of 10, with 20 pi. on 2 rub. OBRAZTS in full, in rod ch-r-.ctors, once on 2 rows of 30 pi. on 3 rub. 5 stamps. Editorial Comments ELoase road over J. Posollts article in Journal #54. It describes SPECIMUW overprints on Scott #31 to #40,. Levant #23 tc j'26, and Zonstvo stamp of Ostrov (Pskov Gub.), Chuchin #4, overprinted by hand in blue, and applied horizontally or diagonally. The overprint is in ENGLISH. (IN Dr. Salisbury's collection) #55 Page 2L ADDITIONAL POSTMAIKS OF RUSSIAN TROOI- IN FRANCE 1916-17 AND POSTILRKS OF A FRENCH UNIT IUT FRANCE by J. Posoll It has recently boon my pleasure to view Dr. Salisbury's collections and to study several items acquired by him pertaining to the article on the Russian troops in France which appeared in Rossica Journal #48. Threecovos containing postmarks not previously described are of groat interest to the student of this now forgotten episode. The first cover (Fig. 1) contains two cancellations. The Russian cancellation at the top is a double circle 31mn. in diameter, printed in violet and reads "2nd. Special Infantry Regiment. 9th. Company". The cancellation below it, in French is dated August 16, 1916 from postal sector 189. It is addressed to Paris. The second cover (Fig. 2) contains the return address on the reverse flap of B. Rubenoff, 2 Regiment Russio, S. P. 189a which is probably the same postal sector as cover #. There is a faint cancellation of the postl; sector dating the cover May 12, 1917. The cancellations illustrated are cn- the left face of the cover. The upper one, printed in blue, is a double circle measuring 25mm. and 34mm. and containing the Imperial double eagle Between the two circles is a French inscription "2mo Regiment Special Infantorio Russo'. Below it is a military control mark in violet consisting of a double oval 28imm. and 40mm. in length inscribed in French "controlled by military authority" and the number is 184. Reverse also shows purple double oval "controlled by military authority" in French and a paper censorz sealing fold with ontrolo Postal Militairoe in a printed frame. The third cover contains only one cancel" .-n; a violet oval with outer double line measuring 48mm. long and an ..-.r oval 35mm. long. The print is violet and the inscription in French roads "Administrative Officer Surgical Automobile Ambulance in Russia". None of the covers boar postage stamps which definitely confirms the use of free franking of mail for the military (Figure 3). Since the original article appeared in 1956, both the author and Dr. Salisbury have been fortunate in acquiring a series of picture postcards of great historical interest showing the Russian regiments at various activities and on parade. We shall show these at a future Annual Mooting as space and costs do not permit reproducing all of thom:in the jounnai. c00oooooooooo0 Recent issue of Polish magazine Filatelista had an article about the Rossica Society, illustration of the vignette honoring Russia #Il, by A. M. Rosselevitch, account of our Now York meeting celebrating 100th. Anniversary cf Russia #l, and it also described the December 14, 1957 issue of STAMPS edited by our Editor in Chief. The vignette appeared on the cover of this issue, also the write-up of our meeting, profusely illustrated, review of our journal and a detailed study of #1 by Mr. Paul Davidson and Dr. Salisbury, as well as the History of the Russian Post b:. our deceased member Capt. S. de Shramchenko. V. Rachmanoff Page 22 # 5 N 0 T E S O N M 0 N G 0 L I A L FEWr FURTHER NOTES. RUSSILN P, 0. IN MONGOLr, by G. S. Russell Following my recent article in "Rossica" I should liko to add a few -queries in the hope that some readers will be able to assist with the information in rdggrd to:- S. DARtILTI, a town lying to the West of L :'hobosogdl. It is shown as DAWHBKLtYN on a late. National Goographic map, also as DIRKHATSKI on another. According to 1913 visitor, Darhati was then a prosper o- commorcial town, the center of the cattle trado between Irkutsk crl UTiankhai, where many Russian settlers lived. It is possible that a P.O. existed at Darhati in those times, although evidence of it i- lacking to date. 2. ULLN DABA. This town lies 50 miles East cf Ulanbator. It is shohr as Ulan Dab on recent maps, but whether-a Russian P.O. existed the.- is not known. Dr. Snegiroff's article (in No. 1/, American Philato:el Congress Handbook, year 1948) indicates that Ulan Diba was a postal routo terminus, so one might assume a Post Office existed. However to best of my knowledge, no cancellation of the town is recorded. 3. GL. Early Russian cancellation. Proof of the doublo-lined oval cancellation with URGA at center and undated (referred to in my previous article) is still lacking, though its existence may be inferred from Dr. Snogiroff's article. Has any reader an example on cover. 4. TS-IN-SHABI. (Note from correspondence of the author to the editor). My last letter mentioned a cover with Russian postage from Tsainshab" in 1917, of which Cronin has sent you a photostat. I wrote tc Tchilinghirian about the rectangular frank on this cover and he says thoro is an illustration of the same type of frank on page 108 of hiE Part 2 Used Abroad (Figure 104). However it is not quite the same, as Figure 104 does not show the name c'f h town, whereas the frank on my Tsain-shabi cover has the word vostok (in Russian of course Tehilinghirian confirms that it is a CI ,ORSHIn mark, as Cronin.said, but wonders if it was applied OUTSIDE Russia (in which case it should be listed and illustrated in the Mongolia part cf his Part 4 USED ROLD.), or inside Russia, at Chita or Irkutsk. Who can tell as to this. The only postmarks on my cover are the two purple ones of Tsai Shaba and Kalgan (in Russian) on back. MONGOLL.. A. Rosselevitch. Ls an addendum to the interesting article by Mr. G. S. Russell in #54, titled "Mongolia", I wish to describe a cancellation in ioy collection found on a Russian 10 ruble stamp, issue of 1906, on paper with vertical lai lines, the cancellation (see illustration) is a double circle 30Cn. in dia- meter with inscription within the two circles URGA IN MONGOLSI FOREIGN P. 0. and five pointed stars with white dot in center. In the middle, bet woon two horizontal lines, is date 23-5-09 in one line. #55 Page 23 This cancellation thus differs from one described by G. S. Russell, in that there is an addition of ZAGR. P. K. ", i.e. foreign post office. This is the third typo of cancellation of Urga. NOTES ON ROSSELEVITCH CANCELLATION by S. D. Tc1' halja . Coming now to Rosselevitch's cancellation and tracing, this URGA V MONGOLII ZAGR. P. K. with serial "a" is a well known marking, of which theau are examples even in a modest collection like mine. This was one of the tpo,. I had in mind when I commented that there were one or two URGA date-stamps tc be added to Russell's list. Evidence in Tolman's collection shows that this type was in use in 1909/10, and this is the date we are giving for it in our Part 1V. Unfortunately, we had to give the idea of reproducing in our book of a photo of a cover with this postmark, which Tolman had submitted, because space was limited, and we had to limit our selection to more outstanding items than this. RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MONGOLIA by Dr. G. B. Salisbury. Those who are interested in the stamps and postal history of Mongolia should consult:- 1. Mongolia Issue China Section Bulletin, June 1956, f!65, Vol. 4, #1, containing fine articles by: a. A. Cronin Mongolia 1924 -27. b. J. Negus Mongolian Cancellations 1924 56. These may be obtained from E. Lane, 78, Broadfields Ave, Edgoware, Middlesex, England. 2. Mongolia G. S. Russell Groat Wall, Vol. 1, #4, which covers not only the Russian P. 0. there, but also the entire field. It is the publication of the China Stamp Collectors Club of Australia. 3. Chin's Supplement C. W. Chiu, Editor, P. 0. Box 1657, Hong Kong. The 1958 issues cover postal history of Outer Mongolia, list of 37 Mongolian towns and their names in Chinese characters, Russian P. 0. and cancellations of URGA POCTOV. KONTORA in Russian in a single circle with date in 3 lines in the center (see below). There is also a write up of the local overprints of Manchuria 1946-47 on covers. 25 10--05 X1 4. Index of China Clippor, Vol. 1 -XVIII. M. J. Albinok China Stamp Society. 19187 Coyle Ave, Detroit 35, Michigan. 5. Mr. Rosselevitch also mentions an interesting book (publishing date unknown) entitled "Visit to Uriankhai" by S. R. Mintslov, former member of Russian Ministry of Agriculture. He was commissioned I7 Imperial Russian Government to study the questions of peasant immigration. a000000000000000 Page 24 #fo THE SOVIET CENSORSHIP IN ROUMANL. .1_4546 by A. Cronin Readers are, no doubt, already familiar with the circular censorship type illustrated, showing a censor number and initial capital letter, to- gether with a Russian inscription meaning "War Censcrship U. S. S. R". Those known so far include the "L" initial for Leningrad, "LM for Moscow, "M-k" for Murmansk and "T" for the Tadzhikstan Republic, "MW of course being the most common. The writer has just come across two Roumanian covers which show that : similar type with the initial "P' (for Rumyniya) was in use by the RussiL. censorship there during 1945-46. Both covers are from the same correspo_- dence and were sent from Bucharest to London by registered express post. The first was mailed on November 5, 1945 and lay in Bucharest for 20 days while being censored by both the Roumanians (oblong marking in two lines reading "CENZURAT/10" in black) and the Russian (censor #1 as shown, struck in violet). The second cover was posted on December 3, 1945 and was still in Bucharest on January 6, 1946, during which time the same Roumani censor examined it, together with Soviet censor #5 whose cachet was applied in black. Both covers carry 1600 Lei in postage. In other words, sending letters by express post made little difference at the time and it is also seems that the backlog of mail was increasing, as the delays became longer. From the two numbers noted, it appears that at least five Russian censors were on the job, and an examination cf fur'th:: Roumanian covers of the period may bring to light additional markings. Sooocooooocooooo ANGLO SOVIET PERSIAN CETNSC- IP by R. Sklarevski From 20 covers dated between 1942 and 1946 mailed from Iran we are able to describe and illustrate a number of Soviet censor markings used by the joint "Anglo-Soviet-Persian Censorship" (exact wording on English censor markings). All Soviet markings, read in Russian "Soviet-Anglo-Iranian Censorship" (see illustration). Most of the envelopes are sealed with white strip, red wording, Iranian censor strips. The markings that I have seen, both English and Russian, are all in violet. I have the following Russian Censor Numbers:- 2, 7,.8, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 23 and 26. Although we illustrate only one type cf,.marking, we are listing and describing two other types. Type 1 Large letters Smallest circle scalloped. Censor No. 2 Type 2 Large Letters Censor No. 8 DYpe Small letters Conscrs Nos. 7, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 23 & 26. (see illustration). All of the markings are handstamped and because of human element ir-ol7- in applying the strike, wear and tear of the canceller, they vary in si>, Most of the covers are addressed to Chicago, Ill. as well as a few to New York, N. Y. and Baghdad, Iraq. 000o000oo0000000o0000 #55 Page 2 THE SOVIET CENSORSHIP IN ROUMANL. .1_4546 by A. Cronin Readers are, no doubt, already familiar with the circular censorship type illustrated, showing a censor number and initial capital letter, to- gether with a Russian inscription meaning "War Censcrship U. S. S. R". Those known so far include the "L" initial for Leningrad, "LM for Moscow, "M-k" for Murmansk and "T" for the Tadzhikstan Republic, "MW of course being the most common. The writer has just come across two Roumanian covers which show that : similar type with the initial "P' (for Rumyniya) was in use by the RussiL. censorship there during 1945-46. Both covers are from the same correspo_- dence and were sent from Bucharest to London by registered express post. The first was mailed on November 5, 1945 and lay in Bucharest for 20 days while being censored by both the Roumanians (oblong marking in two lines reading "CENZURAT/10" in black) and the Russian (censor #1 as shown, struck in violet). The second cover was posted on December 3, 1945 and was still in Bucharest on January 6, 1946, during which time the same Roumani censor examined it, together with Soviet censor #5 whose cachet was applied in black. Both covers carry 1600 Lei in postage. In other words, sending letters by express post made little difference at the time and it is also seems that the backlog of mail was increasing, as the delays became longer. From the two numbers noted, it appears that at least five Russian censors were on the job, and an examination cf fur'th:: Roumanian covers of the period may bring to light additional markings. Sooocooooocooooo ANGLO SOVIET PERSIAN CETNSC- IP by R. Sklarevski From 20 covers dated between 1942 and 1946 mailed from Iran we are able to describe and illustrate a number of Soviet censor markings used by the joint "Anglo-Soviet-Persian Censorship" (exact wording on English censor markings). All Soviet markings, read in Russian "Soviet-Anglo-Iranian Censorship" (see illustration). Most of the envelopes are sealed with white strip, red wording, Iranian censor strips. The markings that I have seen, both English and Russian, are all in violet. I have the following Russian Censor Numbers:- 2, 7,.8, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 23 and 26. Although we illustrate only one type cf,.marking, we are listing and describing two other types. Type 1 Large letters Smallest circle scalloped. Censor No. 2 Type 2 Large Letters Censor No. 8 DYpe Small letters Conscrs Nos. 7, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 23 & 26. (see illustration). All of the markings are handstamped and because of human element ir-ol7- in applying the strike, wear and tear of the canceller, they vary in si>, Most of the covers are addressed to Chicago, Ill. as well as a few to New York, N. Y. and Baghdad, Iraq. 000o000oo0000000o0000 #55 Page 2 0.. K. 1.. A M.D NORTH WEST ARMY by A. Rossolovitch After the appearance of my article in #51 Rcssica about the overprints of North West Army, I received many letters from the readers who shared with mo their findings and sent me certain stamps from their collections for in- spection. This enables me to add to my article some interesting details, and to clarify those points which wore not clear. First of all, about the stamps of 0. K.C. A. our rospocted member, Baron C. do Stackelborg,accuratoly underlined the fact that the cancellatic . of Station "MOLOSKOVITSIY", St. Petersburg Gubernia, does not accidentally figure on the groat majority of theso stamps. On this station, during several weeks, wore the headquarters of the North West Army and it was thus the center which connected it to the sources of supplies. From here staff departments wore transferred to Gatchina, after this the headquarters were moved with the retreating Army to the Estonian border. Thus the people who were in charge of spreading and selling of the stamp supplies of 0. K.C. A. utilized the canceller of station Moloskovitsy, not only on the spot of tho:' presence, but later on, in Estonia, where the c:-'- 1loer served for fabri- cation of covers and for cancellation of stamps, -n in entire shoots. There wore instances when the stamps of 0. K. C. L. served their legitimate purpose for payment of postage for normal private corrospondneco. One of our readers, sent us, from the far off land whore he resides data and photographs of a letter and a post card franked by the 0. K. C. A. stamps, and as a rare instance or exception of normal usage of postal payment. Both wore found in 1921, in Moscow, in.the postal branch or otdel, of undelivered mail, where they ended up after the conclusion of the Peace of Riga, between Poland and R. S. F. S. R. and both have the postmark of "WARSAW 1, 15 May 1921" in Polish. Both wore addressed to a place where it was impossible to deliver mail, because of military action and both have Polish and Estonian markings and inscriptions, attesting to this fact. Letter was franked only with the stamps of 0. K. C. A. two of 20 kop. and one of 10 kop. pasted on the reverse side of the envelope. (see Photo- graph) and cancelled POITA SPB. 3 November 1919. Letter was addressed to the village of Vasilievskoyo, of sqone volost, Bobrov yesd, Voronezh Gubernia. Along side of stamps, postmark of 70Tarsaw and on the face of the cover, red Polish inscription "Na Sokhranonio" or 'to hold" and two small postmarks of Polish and Estonian post, blue and rod. The dato on the postmark is a bit questionable, on the canceller of Polna SFB. 3 November 1919, as one is forced to deduce that a new style cal- endar was introduced, something that was not done in other parts of freed Russia, especially in the South. Actually the town of Luga was yielded to the Reds, on new style 2nd. Novcaber (21 Oct. old style) and town of Gdov on 8th. of November (27th. Oct. old style) thus the :.-to on the postmark of .Polna must be only in the now stylo, as Polna romaine: the hands of Whites up to 6th. or 7th. of November 1919. Pago 26 #55 The postcard is still mcrb interesting (soo photograph). This card, issued by the Provisional Govt. (oaglc without crown and overprint of 5 kop., brown) with addod franking consisting of 0. K. C. A. stamp of 5 kop. and stamp of tho Russian Empire 10 kop., issuo 1889-04 on paper with vertical lines. Those were cancelled by the postmark of POLNA GIB. 2nd October 1919 (Polna, St. Potorsburg Gubornia) and it is addressed to ORSHL, Mogilov Gub. There is an inscription in Polish Odue to lack of communication to be hal,"' ahi a little blue mark of the Polish censor. Finding of those two documents, (it is possible thoro are others) similar to those or with cancellations of other settlements does not give us basis to conclude that stamps of 0. K. C. A.. were regularly sold at the post office of Polna. Post card proves that franking has an accidental character, as the, stamps of 1889-04 wore not sold anywhere in any P. 0. in 1919, and especially in a little village, where it. was never possible to have largo stores of stamp. suppliesof old issues. If the sender of the postcard purchased stamps at the P. 0. he would have cotton only the stamps of 0. K. C. L. or (if these woron't. enough) the stamps of theEmpiro issue 1909, but never of 1889-04.. Thus we shall not deduce by error, that the sendor'had already the needed additional stamps, or received them from a private individual. I shall return to this lat' r, while I describe a simil-a document. Regardless of the sources of those stamps thoy do not reflect upon the value of these documents, which appear to be among the most interesting postal communications of the Civil War. As to the overprint of the North West Army we can add new data to my Article in No. 51, of our journal; I spoke there that the round dot in letter *Yat" in the word USev." (2nd. Letter) does not stand for irrefutable genuiness of the overprint. Actually somo, more rodent forged,ovorprints on kop. values have some such dots, quite formless, but however able to fool those who merely lock for them and for nothing elso. Fantastic oval cancellation of the Field Postal Telograph Office (Polovoi P. T. Kontory) appears also on genuine overprints, mainly on cheap stamps of this series. Cancellation is either in blue or gray, Jots are square, size 32x25imm., with date more frequently 19 or 20 of Sopto.bor, 1919. Up to now, philatelists considorod the overprint of North West Army on 2/114 kop. stamp as tho. rarest. There oxists however an overprint on the 35 kop. imperforate stamp which was prepared on only 20 stamps. It is difficult to juLgo whether they were in the original and official release or in the additional and unofficial. Our member of Rossica, Mr. K. Frcyman is the 'lucky owner of one example of this rarity and he was most obliging in sending it to us for an examination. Besides this, Mr. Froyman has in his collection. M;SLOGOSTITSY 1. Overprint on 10 ruble stamp, perforated. "FETROGM. 29 LUG. 1919J.4. Postmark is genuine, but the stamp most '.ieoly was nover used. Maslogostitsy is near the border of Pct -ad Gubornia, 32-33 vor-- t North of Pskov, on a rural road (prosol. .ioi) going from Pskov '..a Polny to Gdov. #55 Page ?7 2. Letter with 4 stamps of N. W. Army with cancellation of S. LUDONI, PETR. GUB. 18 Oct. 1919y. reached Tallin October 24th 3. Letter with 1 ruble stamp, perforated, with black overprint of N. W. Army sent from Polna August 4, 1919 and received in Uriev on August 11, 1919. The stamp is also cancelled with a lilac "TARTU S. B." in a rectangular frame, which evidently is an Estonian censor marking.. 4. A letter with mixed franking of one 20 kop. N. W. Army and a strip of 3 of 5 kop. (issue of 1909) unoverprinted Imperial Russia. Malcr: from Polna, August 25, 1919 to Gdov, but there is no receiving Gdov postmark. All of these letters and cancellations are without a doubt rare excep.- ions to the general rules, according to which, stacps of North West Army e:.- seen only with PSKOV postmark, with which were c i led letters with phiJ- telic franking and stamps in sheets, or large bl. c.s. Military action in Pa comparatively small sector, changes in the front lines, and transfer of officers and the Army as well as of the departments and officials, aided tLh fact that people who*'purchased stamps in Pskov, after the fall of this town on August 28th,, wont to other places where they were able to use a part of these stamps or ask at the P. 0. for cancellation by favor at other settle- ments or towns. I shall emphasize that there are two cancellers of Pskov, lst., known to all round, with a thicker outer ring, made mostlikely during the Civil War, in place of pre-war type, lost or carried away during the evacuation of the city, which suffered through several changes of Government. 2nd., oval, with words FSKOV VCKZAL in Russian, This cancellaticn is met consider- ably less often, and as far as I can judge cancelled stamps of North West Army, on letters that were not of speculative nature. Coming back to earlier described postcard with stamps of 0. K. C. A., and the letter with the stamps of North West Army, both having additional franking of Russian stamps of various issues without overprint,.I think that documents prove that there were no special stamps sold in the P. 0. at Polna, and that these were already hold by those people who sent their letters through this post office. Actually if these stamps wore at the P. 0., it is difficult to believe that they were sold, one to a purchaser, adding needed franking with stamps without overprint; it is more logical to assume that these special stamps were held by certain individuals, who purchased at the P. 0. the regular Russian stamps if additional franking was needed '-' the determined rate. A comparatively large number of seen stamps with the cancellation of Polna, and complete absence of stamps with the cancellation of Gdov, allows us to deduce that the post office at Gdov was disorganized or cleaned out by the Red Army prior to its departure from the city. It seems that the mail from Gdov was sent to Polna, where letters were cancelled and sent to theb: destinations. Thus for example, from the text on the other side of the post card one learns thrt it3 sender !voed and worked in Gdov, but it has Page 28 #5" noevrtholoss the postmark of Polna. The described above letter with mixed franking however, vas the opposite, was sent from Polna to Gdov. As the one and the same canceller could not have travellod from Gdov to Polna and back, and used in one and in the other place, it is perfectly cloar that P. 0. in _ Polna, besides its regular functions, looked after the correspondence which was posted in Gdov. We are deprived of the opportunity of judging why it was not deemed necessary to reestablish the Gdov P. 0. and to make at least a temporary, now canceller with the name of this city, as was done in Pskov. We should noto, in any case that Gdov was in the White Russian hands barely six months, from the middle of May to November 8, 1919 (new style), and that during that time the front approached this town, almost to the outskirts. ccoocoooocoo oooooooooooooooooooocoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 010 Discount on all purchases 15% Discount on all purchases Oof $2.00 and up. of .10.00 and up. 0 0 ONEW ISSUES ERRCBS COVERS VARIETIFS ZSTVOS LOCALS STAMPLES5 0 0 0 o L. & F. STAMP S E' V I CE ooooo -6 0 o o 0 o Box #1. GRAD LEDGE, ooo000 0 ocooo o 01. Stamples covers from 1812 to 1870 in stock. Also postal stationery.6 02. Price list furnished on request. 03. Approvals at about 70% discount from Scott's on Russia, States & 0 0 Poland. 0 04. I also have Zemstvos in stock. 0 ooOOOOC OOOOOOooCo Coc O cOoocoocoC0oc OOo oocCOCOoocOC C-C OC CCC OOOOo00 X X y ALEXANDER B ISK X X 280 -Riverside Drive X X New York 25., Y. . X x X EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, EETC. X x X Want lists for collectors and dealers filled by return mail. Better X X grade approval books by country also available. Many rarities and X X oddities for specialists. X X IUSI-A. UKRAIS. BESELUX. BALKAS. C.rI., WESTERN & EASTERN X EU-ROPE. SCADTAVIA. ETC. X Other Continents on hand; although weaker. X X #xxXIX-5XXX/x=:-;7 Ix: r_ O ,T S 7XXX5oXXxXXxxC': -' "- 'lXs XXyXXX2XXX #55 Page 29 A RETOUCH OF THI 10 ROUBLE ARMS TYPE STAMP by Dr. C. do Stackolborg Looking cver my 10 ruble stamps of the Arrf tes of 1915-23 with the hope of finding the Huddy flaw, I discovered a r- .. ch which to my knowledge, has never been before described in the philatelic literature. The Huddy flaw was described in the British Journal of Russian Philately, No. 23, March 1958, pages 725 and 726, by W. H. H. Huddy. The flaw consists in the line enci4rli: the Arms center being broken at the bottom. This is found on some sheets i" positions 35 and 42. Please see illustration A of the normal stamp and illustration B of the flaw. The retouch which I discovered appears on the 4.9th stamp, on the shee f: of the 1918 to 1922 printings, clean and rough perforated, where the small white oval shaped ornament just below the Arms oval has been filled out to produce, in the middle of the ornament a small irregular white square, slightly slanted to the loft. Please see the illustration C. I wish to thank the Editor, Mr. F. Julius Fohs, Mr. E. L. Wisowell, Jr. Mr. N. V. SaiAtzky, and Mr. L. Glass for their kind assistance in confirming the position of the retouch on the sheet. Incidentally Mr. Glass also din- covered the retouch while locking for the Huddy flaw, and Mr. R. SklareIwsfi. has known it for several years. I am likewise deeply grateful to Mr WH. H. Huddy for the data on his flaw, the addenda received from his corrospondeits, and for his permission to use his illustration, as shown in B.J.R.P. Mr. Wisewoll owns a number of covers with this retouch, all of which are dated Moscow, July-August, 1922. Hwoweer, apparently none of the above mentioned have yet seen an imperforate 10 rouble stamp with this retouch. The problem before us is the time of issuarr -f the 10 ruble imperforate stamp. If they were issued before 1918, as Mr. irt seems to indicate, in his excellent check-list, published in the Stanley Gibbons Journal of July/ August 1927, and should the stamp, No. 49 on the sheet, have been retouched only in 1918, then there is the possibility that no imperforate retouched stamps exist. Perhaps some of our Rossica readers can come to our assistance on this point, or find a retouched 10-rouble imperforate stamp. After all, Mr. Huddy informs us that his flaw was only known on the imperforato stamps, until he heard from Mr. Wisewell of Boston, who found his flaw on a sheet of perforated stamps. As a proof he sent a photo of a sheet containing the flaw in the known positions. ihrn corresponding about the above flaw and retouch, many members and friends Lhave brought to the Editors and my attention quite a number of flaws and retouches which have not yet, to our knowledge, been listed in any catalogue or check-list. Presently they comprise the following: Mr. E. C. Peel of North Harrow, Middlesex, England has informed the Editor that he has found 5r. (3 stamps) wh-re the first "A" in Pochtovaya Marka is larger and nearly touches theo"B (Rissian "u') and where the Russian "Ya" is taller than normal, with a squatish appearance. See illo D' Page 30 #5 They were found on (a). a stamp, perf. 12i, postmarked Lubino, Petr. 16.1.21. (b). a stamp, perf. 12-, postmarked Potrograd 12.1.21. (c). a stamp, perf. 134, postmarked Podobinc, Tver G. 6.8.20. Mr. Feel has also a 5 ruble stamp perforated 12 with omitted back- ground, postmarked Zaikovo, Viteb. 21.12.20. Dr. Salisbury has a mint copy of the same stamp, with center shifted. Mr. W.H.H. Huddy of Cornwall, England has sent to the Editor a 1 R. stamp, perforated 134, with horizontal chalk lines, where the tor left arm of the "Y" in "RYBu is touching "I and the left arm is continued aczron:- the top part of the "B" making the tail of the "B" appear twice as wide as in the normal stamp. It is found in the 2nd. from the bottom row in the , sheet. See illustration E. Mr. Sklarevski in Towson, Md. has two copies of 10 ruble stamp cancelled in 1922 and one mint copy in a small block of four where the Russian "L" joins "B" at the bottom in "Rublei". See illustration F. Judging by the position of the St. Andrews Cross in the small block belonging to Mr. Sklarevski, the position of this variety in the sheet could be No. 41 to 4A, Then Mr. Cronin discovered a 35 kop. of this issue, where the whole right hand corner of the stamp has been rotouchc See illustration G. His note on this retouch follows this article. I myself looking for Mr. Cronints retouch in my collection have discovered three 35 kop. stamps where part of the upper loop of the top right "3" is missing, thus separating the upper rounded end from the body of the figure 3. This flaw I found on the 24th. stamp of the left lower panel, -which bears below the plate number KRED TYP 1910 ", which Mr. Julius Fohs classifies as the First. Printing of the stamp. See illustration H. I also found the same flaw on an Ukrainian stamr-, Kharkov, Type II, black overprint, perforated anc on an Armenian stamp, First Provisional Overprint, type II, black overprint, perforated. This subject is sc intorestinr that the Editor is asking our readers and friends to notify us of all the varieties, errors, flaws and retouches of which they know of and which are not'listed in specialized catalogues as Romeko 1956 or the chock-list of Mr. Vibert, already mentioned above. We feel that the time has come to compile and to publish a new and mere complete and up to date check-list of this beautiful issue, which still proudly bore the Imperial Russian .rms far into Soviet times, so as to commemorate the 50th. anniversary of the issuance of those stamps next ye.... Mr. Sklarevski informs me that he has found the broken"3's" in an imperforate sheet, with 4 red brown position dots, as well as perforated and imperforate blocks of 4 showing two plate flaws. They are of-course .. a later printing than mentioned by me in this article. The positi -tof t.:a fl.av in the imperfo rate shnet, which ax.pP- twice, =- Nos, 78 & 80,, bet .. #55 Pagoe 3. rignt corner pane. The perforated block of four has right hand margin and is probably from the same position as in the imperforate sheet, and tho stamps fall into positions 78, 79, 88 and 89. Finally, as we have been speaking of the rouble value of the Arms Type Issue, I would like to refer to Mr. Rosselevitch's Notes on page 43 in the English Edition of Rossica, #45 of 1955, concerning the extremely rare 5 ruble perforate stamp, inverted background, which he owned and sold in 1948. The whereabouts of this stamp is presently unknown to him. I also own such a stamp, having discovered it in 1932, while examining the stock of a stamp dealer in Helsin;;fors, Finland. My stamp is cancelled, probably Petrograd, in May 1917, wheras the stamp that once belonged to Mr. Rosselevitch, was as far as he remembers, of a later 1918 to 1919 printing, 00ooooo00000000000000oooooo INVERTED BACKGROUNDS ON POSTAL SAVINGS & CONTROL STAMJPS by R. Sklarevski During the shortage of postage stamps some v.'ues of Postal Savings and Control Stamps were used for postal purposes. Lost of the catalogues except Scott list them. These stamps are very common when used for their original purpose and somewhat better when used postally. We are not here to discuss their various uses, but to announce a NEW DISCOVERY. We had been suspicious for a long time that there was a great possibility for these stamps to have inverted or reversed backgrounds, depending on the value . 25 kop. black & brown (Gibbons #198) postal savings on normal stamps convex loops (see Fig. 1), while on the stamps with inverted background, the loops are concave (see Figure 2). The only other value that has a similar background is the 50 kop. brown postal savings stamp. 10 and. 25 ruble postal savings stamps have the same background as Scott No. 60a. 11. of the copies that I have seen are with the inverted background (probably normal for that stamp), i.e. same as on Scott No. 60a (Gibbons No. 70b) (see Figure 3). Almost all of the Control stamps used paper with backgrounds of 25 & 50 kop. of Postal Savings stamps, except with the convex surface of the loops facing to the left ( We have copies of 1 ruble orange and 25 ruble with convex surface facing to the right )", which we consider inverted. See Figure 5. Since our collection contains single copi. riy, we have not been able to confirm the inverted backgrounds on 50 kop. i r. savings as well as on 25, 50 kop., 3, 5, 10 and 100 rubles of control stamps. The other values of either set were not considered due to the fact that the background is the same in either direction. ooooooooooooooooo0000000000000000000ooo Page 32 #5 PROMINENT IETOUCH ON 35 !. ARMS TYPE by A. Cronin Remarks in the Journal cn plate flaws of the 15k. Arms type and its descendents, reminds the writer that an interesting constant variety is also to be found on some printings of the 35k. Arms. This is in the form of a prominent retouch to the upper right section of the design. It is easily seen with the naked eye and extends from the end of the bunched-up drape at right across the backfound to the figures of value and frame lines. The orderly arrangemon-t of dots making up the background has been disturbed and a.haphazard g 'ng of blobs appears instead, while the "3" of "35" is noticeably la : than in the other corners. The space between the inner and outer frame lines is irregular a' wider than in the rest of the design; in addition both frame lines are buckled outwards and the corners rounded to some extent. It would seem that this is an electro variety, as it is only found on the later perforated and imperforate printings which show no numbers in the sheet margins but only the single pips in reddish-purple at the outer ends of the four gutters. Its position is on the second stamp of the bottom right pane and it appooar 'to be the result of a blow to the electro. Single copies or sheets showing the original damage may well exist, but the writer has not come accrods .them as yet. Such items, together with dated copies showin. the whole sequence..and period of use of these varieties would be well locking for. Editorial Comment:-R. Sklarevski confirms the above flaw as 57th. stamp in the sheet of 100 (2nd. stamp in the lower right hand pane) and it occurs in the same sheet with two broken "31s". COCOOOOOOCOCOOQC0OO 100th. ANNIVERSARY. OF RUSSIA #1 by A. L. Chebothevich I have the red and the black cancellations, commemorating 100th. Anniversary of Russia No. 1, as descrtbod by John Barry in #54., on a souvenir sheet issued in Moscow in 1957 during the International Phila- telic Exhibition. I also have a rod cancollatir i the Imperial #44+, 1889 violet and green 50.kop. gluod on a rectan white piece of paper. The previously mentioned sheet ia a light blue green with a scroll on top, white with blue lettering INTERE;TIONITAL PHILATELIC EXHIBITION IN capital letters, bel w, a similar scroll with. MOSCVA 1957 ". In the contor is a circle with ornaments reprosonting the globe in blue with white lettering % For peace and Friendship and around the: globe in a white space in blue letters "VI International Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow 1957 ". On each side is a picture of O4 kop. stamp of USSR commemorating the event. The sheet is ornamental with blue design of leaves. Postmarks were applied to bottom edge of each sheet. #55 Page PROMINENT IETOUCH ON 35 !. ARMS TYPE by A. Cronin Remarks in the Journal cn plate flaws of the 15k. Arms type and its descendents, reminds the writer that an interesting constant variety is also to be found on some printings of the 35k. Arms. This is in the form of a prominent retouch to the upper right section of the design. It is easily seen with the naked eye and extends from the end of the bunched-up drape at right across the backfound to the figures of value and frame lines. The orderly arrangemon-t of dots making up the background has been disturbed and a.haphazard g 'ng of blobs appears instead, while the "3" of "35" is noticeably la : than in the other corners. The space between the inner and outer frame lines is irregular a' wider than in the rest of the design; in addition both frame lines are buckled outwards and the corners rounded to some extent. It would seem that this is an electro variety, as it is only found on the later perforated and imperforate printings which show no numbers in the sheet margins but only the single pips in reddish-purple at the outer ends of the four gutters. Its position is on the second stamp of the bottom right pane and it appooar 'to be the result of a blow to the electro. Single copies or sheets showing the original damage may well exist, but the writer has not come accrods .them as yet. Such items, together with dated copies showin. the whole sequence..and period of use of these varieties would be well locking for. Editorial Comment:-R. Sklarevski confirms the above flaw as 57th. stamp in the sheet of 100 (2nd. stamp in the lower right hand pane) and it occurs in the same sheet with two broken "31s". COCOOOOOOCOCOOQC0OO 100th. ANNIVERSARY. OF RUSSIA #1 by A. L. Chebothevich I have the red and the black cancellations, commemorating 100th. Anniversary of Russia No. 1, as descrtbod by John Barry in #54., on a souvenir sheet issued in Moscow in 1957 during the International Phila- telic Exhibition. I also have a rod cancollatir i the Imperial #44+, 1889 violet and green 50.kop. gluod on a rectan white piece of paper. The previously mentioned sheet ia a light blue green with a scroll on top, white with blue lettering INTERE;TIONITAL PHILATELIC EXHIBITION IN capital letters, bel w, a similar scroll with. MOSCVA 1957 ". In the contor is a circle with ornaments reprosonting the globe in blue with white lettering % For peace and Friendship and around the: globe in a white space in blue letters "VI International Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow 1957 ". On each side is a picture of O4 kop. stamp of USSR commemorating the event. The sheet is ornamental with blue design of leaves. Postmarks were applied to bottom edge of each sheet. #55 Page ADDENDA TO RAILWAY POSTMARKS OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA (based on author's collection) by Kurt Adler Reference Journal #46/.7, Type Cl (Page 10, 'iustration C). Pocht. Vagon Lugansk-Kramatorskaya. Date illegible (2) Pocht. Vagon Kramatorskaya-Lugansk Zh. D. 20 Jan. 1886 (2) Has no number next to day date. Pochtovy Vagon Derpt-Taps (1). 1879.. 1 (sideways). Type D2 (Page 13, not illustrated). Pocht. Vagon 519 2V- 15 5 VIII Yekterinoslav Koristovka Double circle postmark, similar to the oval Kremenots Dubno. (The numeral "l" is not the r6ute but the number of the canceller). Date 1917. Khabarovsk 1 Boch Karyevo Reference My article on unusual postmarks, Journal #48. Double Circle T. P. 0. Ramenskoye Moskva . 1915 *a Pocht. Vagon- Double circle T. P. 0. on entire -7-tcard. Old Imperial canceller with old spelling in tL ;' of letter "E" still used at a late Soviet date. Maikop Byeloryechenskaya. Pocht. Vag. (3-5-26) Reference Journal#46/47 (Illustration 5). Journal #48 (Page 34, Type E). P. 0. V. No. No. at bottom Year 3 7 1885 From Zvony, Pocht. St. Pskov. Gub. to Amsterdam 4 5 1889 From Zapolye to St. Petersburg. 6 3 1896 6 4 1892 To New York, Reference Journal #48. (Page 35, not illustrated). Type E2. On canc. P. V. No. 138 (2) (Addressed to Austria). Route Baku Vladikavkaz Page 34 '15 Imperial Oval RR Postmarks other than listed. * Reference Journal #46/47, Type H illustrationn 8) .48 (Pape 38). 1 St. Petersburg Moscow 40 Riga St. Petersburg Petrograd Moscow 40 "'- sa St. Petersburg 2 Moscow St. Potersburg 40 ,Iga Petrograd Moscow Potrograd 60 Sevastopol Kharkov 4 Warsaw St. Petersburg 86 Libava Riga Warsaw Petrograd (1915) 86 Muraviova- Riga(1909) 4 Vilna S.P.Burg. (0td) (1915) 89 Taps Hapsal 6 Vorzhbolovo S.P.Burf. 89 Riga Taps (1910) 6 Verzhbolovo Vilno (Otd) (1913) 90 Hapsal Taps 6 Verzhbolovo Petrograd (Otd) (1915) 90 Taps Riga 19 Kharkov Rostov (Otd) (1914) 151 Uralsk Petrovskaya Slobod 24 Kostroma Bologoye (1915 & 16) 152 Uralsk Petrovskaya Slobora 24 Kostroma Petrograd (1917) (probably postal error) 26 Sosnovitsi Warsaw (1912) 26 Granitsa Warsaw (1912) 39 St. Petersburg Riga 39 St. Petersburg Hapsal (1911) 39 Petrograd Riga (1915) TYPE HI 153 Khabarovsk Vladivostok 266 Port Arthur Kharbin (1905) 154 Vladovostok Khabarovsk 266 Kwangchensi Kharbin (1915) B Reference Journal #54 Addition to the list. Inadvertedly parts of the routes were missing in the listing. The blanks in the route numbers when filled in, make the routes read as follows:- 307 308. 317 318. 327 328. 329 -: Reference Variation of Postmark Type H illustrated) . As an addition to ir. Kehtro's excellent article about RR cancellations I would like to draw our member's attention to two oval Rail. Road Station postmarks on post cards which differ from the standard RR station cancel- lations in measurements and lettering. Strangely enough, both of the post cards were used at the Brest RR Stations, one in Moscow, the other in Warsaw, the Western terminal of the line. Both oval cancellations are longer in horizontal, and shorter in the vertical axis. The measurements being 34x23mm. for Warsaw postmark and 32x21mm. for the Moscow cancellation. T"h color of the postmarks in black. The Moscow oval has unusually hirh date numbers (5mm.). (Please see illustration page). The postcards were cancelled in 1906 and 1907, rather shortly after the establishment of the new standard oval RR postmarks (in 1905). It would be very interesting to hear from our members whether other RR stops on Brest S #55 Page 35 line, like Brest Litovsk, Smolensk, and others used the same type of cancellers, different from standard only. Editorial Note.' Probably for mail taken at the RR Stations on various stops on Brest RR line. Unrecorded Postmarks (illustrated) (Railway) 1 Libavo Gazonpotski Uzkokol Podyezdnoi. Tti Station Grobin 2/VI (1903) From Grobin'via Libava,- 2 VI 1903 to I--- (post card) Cancellation is purple color.- Unrecorded Postmarks (illustrated) Circular. (1) Bilingual Tukkum 1831 Schrundeu (1857) (day and month in manuscript) Friedrichstadt 1845 (manuscript date). Frauenburg 1.831: (2) Dispatch Postmark Bausk Otpravleno (dispatched) 1849 (3) Postmarks of different P. 0. Sections of St. Petersburg. S. Petersburg Otdelenie (section) 1, 1824 S. Petersburg Otdelonie"-(section)' 2 1835 S. Petersburg Otdelenie (section) 3 1848 Otdelenie 4 (in framed rectangle.) was -illustrated in .Jourrnal. #54. () Rare cancellation of Riga. 1828. K. P. means Kolesochnaya Pochta' (ail Coach Postal Service). (5) Same as (4). e'xcept'for itava. 1833. Oval, without a data. (6) Oval postmarks of Small Baltic P.O.' s. '(in German)' Post Neuer Muohlon .1846 (Manuscript date). Post Engelhardshof 1849 '(In collection of Kurt Adler) Post Bilchensehe 1838 (IA collection of.Kurt Adler) Page 36 . S REGULAR POSTAGE STI.MP ISSUES OF USSR by Kurt Adler CORRECTIONS & CL RIF TI 0 NS Herewith we are giving:- a. Corrections. b. -Clarifications, whore some lines did not show well in printing. Journal #49/50 Pame 19. 1 kop. yellow should read 1 kop. oran7c yellow. Page 22. #324a should be dark brown & green. Journal #54 Page 59. The shade varieties for the 8 kop. value should be indicated as follows. Watermarked 1926 P. 11-x12l Imporf Lithcprarhod X-------------- brown olive olive gray X-..------.- black olive dark olive black green olive ro-engr. dark brown clive X---olive light brown olive Pae 60. Add X under 30 -. grey violet (last column). Page 61. 1 1926 Move arll X's from 7 column to ImD. column, starting with 9 kop. value. Lith. Typo. Page 62. Clarification. In printing vertical separating lines did not show up well. 3 rubles Ist. column Type I, next 4 columns are Type II. Page 63. Ad X's in Column 1926/Imp./Typo.u 1 ruble-red brown. 2 rubles-carmine & green. Page 63. Clarification. In printing vertical separating lines did not show up well, 3 rubles-dark brown & rreen. Ist. two columns Type I. Last two columns Type II. ooooocoocooooooooooooooooo O0000000000000000000O0OO0 ERRATA TO LETTERS FROM COLLECTORS. Journal #54, P. 54 (Kurt Adlor). There was, through an oversight of mine, a regretable error in postmark: dates of the Komandorski Ostrcva cover. Herewith we are giving correct date "Petrcpavlovski Port Sept. 1, 1889, incoming (yoar by manuscript). The out- gcin postmark is "December 14, 1889" and the arrival postmark at St. Peters burg is "June 8, 1890". #55 Page 37 CATALOGUE OF RUSSIAN VIGNETTES by E. Marcovitch Part III Transition Period. 1916 1923. By popular demand we interrupt the sequence of the Catalogue of Erinno- philia to publish Part III. We shall resume the proper order upon comple- tion of this section. The Editors P H A N T A S I E S Phantasies ( timbres de fantaisie, bogus) although not considered as counterfeit stamps, since they are not forgeries of the regularly issued postage stamps, were prepared by their originators with the same idea as those issues prepared by the counterfeiters, and that is to lead the collect- ors and dealers astray, with the purpose of making a profit. In most of the cases the bogus items resemble postage stamps, which allego'edlywere issued in a definite locality at a definite time, while actually they were phantastic fruits of unscrupulous individuals. In most of the cases they appeared during the times of unrest, Civil and World Wars, revolutions or times of politicalturmoil. These dramatic moment in lives of people give philatelic speculators opportune time of starting their productivity, since it is impossible.in many cases to get a proof of a bonafidness of an issue. War of 1914-18 and the chaos in Russia which followed, downfall of Monarchy, coup d'etat by bolsheviks, Civil War, and establishments of new, often short lived governments on the territory of the Russian Empire, opened wide vistas for issuing of numerous postage and revenue stamps. At the same time, in Russia as well as abroad, begrn to appear phantasies, as though appearing in Russia, while in realty they were manufactured in Turkey, Germany, France, Italy, and other countries, flooding the European market and even penetrating Russia, although in smaller quantities. Bogus stamps may be of two types: either overprints on genuine stamps, or stamps ( actually vignettes) of original designs. Many of these issues, especially those of overprints, found their way o European and American catalogues, where they remained for many years. -s their true status became known, they gradually were taken out of the catalogues, although some of them for some unknown reason still remain there. The reverse also happened, i.e. stamps which were actually issued, were removed from the catalogues. Among the stamps of these turbulent times, also are questionable ones, i.e. ones whose status even now in not clear. One does not know whether they are bogus stamps or whether they have a perfectly legitimate reason of being in the catalogue. All bogus stamps when their status became known were boycotted by collect- ors, and also by honest dealers. They were laid aside as questionable items and little or no value was placed upon them. Page 38 #55 A score of years or two have passed. Both the war of 1914-18 and the Civil War are now a history; participants in these wars are dying off; World War II came with its horrors and hard times. Huge quantities of new issues have appeared, bothofficial and non official, speculative as well as bogus. Older phantasies started to disappear and now are found less and less often. On the other hand the demand for them has increased for the following reasons. After World War I a now type of collecting was developed - thematic (topical philately). For theme collections of "World War I" or "Civil War in Russia", phantasies of this. epoch are necessary, as curious documents of these turbulent times. At the same time the scope of Erinnophilia has spread, and collectors of vignettes begrn to add phantasies to their collections, as examples of this interesting epoch. I personally think that one is perfectly correct to do that, since these stamps can not be considered as postage or revenue stamps; their place is in a collection of vignettes of the first World War and the period immediately following it period beginning with revolution and Civil War. With the strengthening of Soviet Rule and .,blishment of USSR, pharntsies disappeared; except during and following World War II when they started to appear again in huge quantities. We begin the 3rd. part of the Catalogue of Vignettes of Russia with the phantasies of 1916-23 period, which will be useful not only to collectors of Erinnophilia but also to philatelists. This catalogue will help to separate little known material and to distinguish phantasios and speculative emissions from those having official status. For preparation of this catalogue we utilized the following sources: 1. Collections of Dr. G. B. Salisbury, J. Pcsell, R. Sklarevski and E. Marcovitch. 2. Journal "Soviet Philatelist" (1924) and "Soviet Collector" (1925). 3. Handbook "Les Tinbros de Fantaisie" by Georges Chapicr. 1936, 1939 and 1952 editions. 4. *Russland Spezial Sammlung dos Barons Carl von Scharfenberg" by Oscar Riop. 1925. 5. 1927 and 1928 Catalcouc of F. Chuchin. 6. Standard Catalopues of Scott) Yvert and Tellier, Michel, Zumstein and others. 7. Catalogue of War Stamps byTrachtenberg, published by Yvert and. Tell - 8. Catalogues of "Romako'. 1927 & 1956. Listinp of all known to us series I RUSSIA and USSR 1. Revolutionary series on Romanov Jubileo stamps (produced by Trachtenberg) 1917. 2. Russian Levant- original designs (immitation of Levant No. 3) 3. Private Post 1918. 4. Generals of White Army Issue 1919 #55 Page39 5. Odessa Help the Hungry Issue. 6. Soviet series with portraits (Lenin, Trotzky, and Zinoviev). 7. Soviet series (allegorical figures). II ISSUES OF THE WHITE ARMY. 1. iovocherkask (bogus overprints). 2. Counterfeits of "Yedinaya Rassiaw (Der a) issue. 3. North Army (General Miller). 4. Army of the West (with double headed eagle), 5. Army of the West (in memory of freeing of Russia). 6. Army of the West ( "Postgebiet Ob. Ost. overprints on stamps of Germany). III WHITE RUSSIA 1. Asobny Astrad (Formerly listed in Scott's under White Russia). 2. Belaruss Poshta (White Russia Post). IV UKRAINA 1. Polish Eagle overprint on original stamps of Ukraina. 2. Overprint South Russia. 3. "Ukraine" overprint on Romanov stamps. 4. Overprinted for Ukrainian Levant. V CAUCASUS 1. Azerbaijan (Russian stamps overprinted "Occupation Azerbaijan"). 2. Azerbaijan (Original designs). 3. Georgia (Overprinted with Red Army star). 4. Georgia (Original designs). 5. Georgian Levant. V1 BALTIC COUNTRIES 1. Latvia (Original designs). 2. Lithuania (Overprints). 3. Estonia (Hapsal). 4. Estonia (Wesonborg overprints "Eosti"). 5. Estonia (Series issued by Bolsheviks). VII F FAR EAST 1. Siberia (Overprints on Issues of 1903 1917). 2. Siberia (Overprints of Pribaikal Temporary Government). 3. Vladivostok (Air-mails). 4. Vladivostok (Control of trade with abrdaf). 5. Czechoslovak Siberian Corps. Page 40 #55 S VIII POLAND 1. Logionistom Polskim (Polish Legionair sue). 2. Polsca Polsha (Poland). 3. Russian Galicia. 4. Polsca Poczta (W.th head of the Republic). 5. Krolestwo Polskie (Kingdom of Poland). IX WESTERN COUNTRIES 1. Persidskaya Pochta (Persian Post). 2. Turkestan (Overprints). 3. Turksstan (Original designs) Revolutionary Somies of 1917. Issued byTrbchtenberg. 1917. Overprints on stamps of Romanov Jubilee Issue (stamps and money stamps). I Typographic red; overprint on blocks of four. Tho ovorprint consists of Phrygian cap, two crossed swords and inscription reading'" Equality and Freedom ". 1. 1 kop. Peter 1. 7. 10/7 kop. (Issue of 1916)Nicholas: 2. 2 kop. Alexander II. 8. 20/14 kop. (Issue of 1916)Cathe:ri 3. 4 kop. Peter I.- : 9. 10 kop. Nicholas II.(Monsy S os. 4. 7 kop. Nicholas II. 10. 15 kop. Nicholas I. (Money Stamps' 5. 35 kop. Paul I. II. 20 kop. Alexander I.(Money Stamps" 6. 50 kop. Empress Elizabeth. la to-la. .bove blocks of 4, wit' overprint inverted. Those stamps were printed in sheets with t._ overprint upright (normal) in the top half of the sheet and ua:si:e down (inverted) in the bottom half of the sheet, thus creating .tete-bache overprints in blocks of eight. Black overrrints exist (although rarely). II Overprint cn blocks of ei.ht stamps in black, reproducing in reduced size the first page of newspaper "News of Petrograd Soviet of Workers and. Peasant Deputees' No. 4, which published Abdicatiou of Czar Nicholas II. 12. 4.kop. Peter I. On money-stamps. 13. 7 kop. Nicholas II. 16. 10 kop. Nichclas II. 14.- 35 kop. Paul I. 17. 15 kop. Nicholas I. 15. 50 kop. Empress Elizabeth. 18. 20 kop. Alexander I. Almost all .of the above values exist with overprint invert Overprints in red (rarer) alsc are found. #55 Page 41 III Black overprint on blocks of 12 stamps (3x4), reproducing in reduced format Manifest of Grand DukeMichaol Alexandrovitch, published in No. 5 of newspaper "News of Petrograd Soviet of Worker and Peasant Deputies", published on March 4, 1917. 19. 4 kop. 21. 35 kop. On money-stamps 20. 7 kop. 22. 50 kop. 23. 10 kop. 24. 15 kop. 25. 20 kop. Inverted overprints, plus overprints on the reverse side of money stamps are known to exist, as well as overprints in red (rarer). Overprint I (Phrygian cap) is also found on the following entire; a. 4 kop. Romanov post card overprintt on right, on embossed stamp). b. 4 kop. Romanov post card overprintt on left, on embossed coat of arms). c. On prisoner of war cards without embossed stamp. d. 3 kop. Romanov letter card. e. 3k. on 5k. stamped envelope (height -' 'n.). f. 3k. on 5k. stamped envelope (height :I..n.). g. 20k. on 14k. Romanov stamped envelope (Catherine II). h. Complementary (without embossed stamp) postcard. The author of these overprints was able to send through post a number of these blocks and entire, which because of chaotic conditions in Russia at that time was possible. We often have seen registered letters, mailed from Petrograd, Odessa and Ekaterinodar. Also are found letters mailed from Petrograd to Paris (rare). Numerous counterfeits exist of these Uprivately issued" overprints. For detailed study of these issues and its counterfeits we refer you to an article by John Reynolds, published in #46/47 of Rossica. RUSSIAN LE VANT This large series consist of vignettes of original designs, most of which are limitations of Russian Levant No. 3. Three different designs were used in this set. Low values have a number, which indicates the viaue, and word "paras". The words in the oval, around the figure of value read "Vostochnaya Marka" (Oriental or Eastern stamp). Size 18x23mm. (See figures 2 and 3). Piastre values are found in two E and are bicolored and printed in various combinations. 1.to 30 pistres 18x25mm. (Fig. 4) 10 to 100 piastres 22x29mm. (Fig. 5) Page 42 #55 Complete set consists of 103 varieties and at the present time is considered very rare. ai stamps were imperforato. The following values and color variations are known to me. 10 paras grey (Figure 2) 5 pia. light violet. 10 paras dark greon 7 pia. lilac & violet 10 paras red brown 7 pia..blue & red 20 paras rod (Figure 3) 7 pia. lilac & grey blue 20 paras violet 7 pia. light violet & violet 20 paras rod brown 10 pia. -li t green & green 1 pia. red 20 pia. r & red 1 pia. red brown 30 pia. c: green & violet 1 pia. slate 10 pia. light violet & dark violet (F. 1- pia. gray violet & violet(F. 4) 10 pia. light green & dark green yl- pia. blue,& re 10 pia. rod brown & dark brown 1- pia. blue & yellow 20 pia. light violet & dark violet Spia. lue & rose 20 pia. light green & dark green 2 pia. blue & red 20 pia. red browh & dark brown 2 pia. grey violet & violet 30 pia. light violet & dark violet 2 pia. lilac & violet 30 pia. light green & dark green 2 pia. grey & dark groon 30 pia. red brown & dark brown 2 pia. brown & dark grocn 35 pia. light blue & light red 22- -ia. blue & red 35 pia. red brown & darl; brown Spia. lilac & violet 35 pia. grey & light blue 2- pia. yellow & green 50 pia. light blue & light rod . p pia. light violet & violet 50 pia. red brown & dark brown 2- pia. violet & green -50 pia. grey & light blue pia. lilac & violet 70 pia. light blue& light rod pia. red & blue 70 pia. rod brown & dark brown pia. light green & violet 70 pia. gey & light blue. 3 pia. light violet & violet 100 pia. light blue & light red 5 pia. lilac & violet 100 pia. red brown & dark brown 5 pia. blue & red 100 pia. grey & li-ht blue 5 pia. lirht brown & grey blue A11 values exist' tete-boche, horizontally and vertically. Evidently the stamps were printed in a sheet in such a way, that every adjacent stamK horizontally or vertically were tote-beche to each other. 3-PRIVATE POST 1918 Typographed in black on paper of various colors and perforated 11, Stamps in form of vertical rectangles 36x43iAmm. Inscribed in cencur- "In accordance with an agreement betweenaddrosocoand receiver a fee of 10 kop. is to be paid to the postman delivering this letter". Inscription on left and rig-ht sidas "Private stamp of 1918". The inscription on the right has word MZHKA U where the letter 1 Z u ( in Latin ) is used instead of Letter "A". (Fig. 6). The origin of these stamps-is not known. 1. 10 kop. black on chanois paper. 3. 10 kop. black on grey paper. 2. 10 kop. black on light blue parer. 4. 10 kcp. black on brick rod papo? #55 Page 4: 4 GENERALS OF WHITE 1AR1Y ISSUE - 1919 Stamps with portraits 20x26mm. 10 kop. green -424x29"mm. Perforated 11. Underneatheach portrait of the General of the White Army is his name. All stamps of the set have the date "1919" and various inscriptions. On blue and violet stamps the original values of "10" and "2511 are blocked out in black and the word "kop" is covered with black overprint "1919'. Numerous orthographical errors are found on inscriptions of all stamps, and from that one can safely deduce that this series was manufactured abroad by individuals unfamiliar with Russian language. 'The origin of this series is not known. 1. Violet. General Denikin. "25" blocked out and I1919" overprinted over "kop" in black. Inscription reads U Citizens, workers and peasants - all for United Russia ". (Figure 7) 2. Blue. General Mai Maevski. "10" blocked out and "1919" overprinted over "kop" in black. Inscription reads Forward, to the walls of Moscow. Kremlin " 3. Dark brown. General Kornilov. Inscription For Homeland and for Freedom ". (Figure 8). 4. Orange. Admiral Alexander Vasilevitch Kolchak. Inscription l For Free United Russia ". 5. Olive green. General Alekseiev. Inscript 6. Red. Supreme Commander of Russia Kolchak. Inscription "For United Russia" 7. 10 Green. Priest with a raised cross leading White Army. Inscription ". Russians I For faith and for fatherland I (Figure 9). 5 ODESSA HELP THE HUNGRY ISSUE Series of 7 stamps issued Perforated 11 and imperforate. Size - 32gx26&mm. This series was allegedly issued in Odessa in early twenties for the benefit of the hungry. According to "Soviet Philatelist" (1924) these stamps wre produced and put on sale by firm Marco Fontano in Venice, T..Ir The- stamps have conventional, little understood designs. 1. 250 rub. red. 3. 750 rub. orange. 2. 500 rub. blue. 4. 1000 rub. dark green (Fig. 10) Page 4 4 - * 5. 2500 rub. violet. 7. 10000 rub. green (Figure 11). 6. 5000 rub. brown. Nos. la to 7a imperforato. 7 -SOVIET SERIES .WITH PORTRAITS. 1923.Series of 7 stamps issued perforated 11 anc. mporforate. Size - 223K42gim. According to Journal "Soviet Philatelist" (1924), this set allegedly issued by Sovift Government, was actually prepared and sold by Italian firm of Marco Fontano in Venice, Italy. Designs are primitive and portray various subjects indicated below. 1. 10,000 orange workerr) 2. 22,500 light green (.pasant) 3. 50,000 brown (red soldier) (Figure 12). Nos. la to-7a- imperforate 4. 100,000 red-carmine (Soviot'Coat'of Arms) 5. 150,000 brick-red (Lenin) 6. 300,000 dark brown (Zinoviev) 7. 450,000 dark blue (Trotzky) (Figure 13) 8 -S 0 VIE T SERIES A L LE G R I C A L DESIGN S. 1923. A series of three stamps, issued imperforate on white or yellowish paper. Because the shapes of Russian letters in Russian words "RUBu and "POST" is incorrect it is assumed that those stamps were produced abroad by individuals unfamiliar with Russian letters. 1. 5, 000 rubles blue (41x25mm.) (Figure 14) 2. 10,000 rubles red (25x3limnm.) (Figure 15) 3. 20,000 rubles green (42x242mm.) Nos. la to 3a impcrfcrate, on yellowi. per. II -ISSUES OF THE WHITE RMY 1. Novotherkask Bogus Overprints 1919. Normal and Inverted overprints in black on imporforate stamps of "1917. "25" and "r." overprints are of two different types. A number of standard catalogues of the World until present time 14s these phantasies allegedly issued in 1919 in Novotherkask. Their origin is not known. 1. 25 on 1 kop. (Fig. 15a). 3. 50 on 3 kop.(Fig. 15b) 5. Ir. on 3 kop. 2. 25 on 2 kop. 4. 50 on 5 kop. Type 1 (Fig. 15c) 6. Ir. on 3 kop. T. 11 (Fig. 15d) Nos. la to 6a overprint inverted. -to be continued- #55 Page .5 POST CARDS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE (Continued from #54. P. 38)1 by R. Sklarevski At this time we will give a listing of all the Imperial post cards known to us, as well as those listed by Ascher and Prigara. It will be given in a simplified table form. The blank spaces in number columns (first 3, from the left signify that, either the author has not seen these varieties or that Ascher or Prigara do not list them). Parts A, C and E, as well as various notes, mentioned in the first article, will not be discussed until a later installment. They are mainly for a specialist or a collector who is interested into going more deeply into their study. S- S P A C E, TOP RIGHT CORNER. Top right corner space, indicated by "B"(See illustration #54, Page 31.) indicated in this article is the space for the adhesive or for the embossed stamp. From May 1, 1872 (Card #2), space "B" as shown on Fig. 1 (see first installment) was filled with an embossed stamp, usually similar to the type of the adhesive used during that period, Card No. 1 which has a space for an adhesive, as illustrated by Figure B1, in Plate B, has an inscription reading "Place for a stamp" or in Russian "Miesto dlia Marki", and is enclosed in a vertical dotted rectangle. For most of the post cards with an embossed stamp, there was a complementary card, similar to No. 1, either in black or brown color, i. e. one having a blank space in the top right hand corner space. Neither we, not the other authorities list them. Types B4 and B5 (Plate B) are the same, except Type B5 has thunderbolts added to it as well as dots in the background. Recently we were very fortunate in examining interesting errors sub- mitted by Mr. Kurt Adler, unrecorded so far. These are Skl. No 26a which is a card No 26a with complete doubling of the return portion of the card, Skl. No. 17a top card, inverted embossed stamp and Sk. No. 17b dry print of the embossed stamp on the top card. The latter variety is very interesi;ng- because at a first glance it seems that the embossed stamp is completely miss- ing, but under a strong magnifying glass one may see a very faint complete embossing. This was produced when no ink was apTlied on the plate or perhap- it was one of the last cards at the end of a ru:r. I also examined a copy of Dr. Salisbury's Skl. No. 4d, where in the inscrit-ion on the on the reverse sido, bottom line, in the second word "Upravlenie", the second letter is Russian I"r" instead of 1"p. This error was made when cards with missing second letter had substituted in the word a wrong letter, thus making the inscription read "Uravlenie" instead of "Upravlenie", Page 46 #55 I have easo seen a number of cards with partly printed embossed stamp, which in one step printing include also the inscription, cards cut through the embossed stamp, etc. These Ere no more than printing waste and can be considered as curiosities. In most cases partly printed cards of a single step printing can not be identified due to the fact that the identifying inscription ib missing. COAT OF ARMS. Column uD" in the listing gives the typo of CGOT OF ARMIS ued on post cards arid itis found in the -top left hand corner of the post card, and is illustrated in Plate D". t; Type D1 was used from 1872, Cards. #1 to # 5. Type D2 was used from 1884. Cards #6 to #18. Type D3 was-used from-1906. Cards #19 to #28. Type D4 was used from 1913. Cards #29 tU #32. Type DR was used from 1917. Cards #33 to #34. LISTING OF POST CARDS OF THE RUSSIAN LPIRE.P' The following listing of Russian post cards, is result of the study made by the author. Blank spaces in NUMBER column, signify, that either the author has not seen the variotios, or.that the other authoritiesdo not liwt them (blanks in Ascher and Prigara columns). Top Inscrirtions llustrabic A Cards 1-24, Illustration M Cards 25-34.. SI Z E S:- '- 128x92mm. (medium). b 123x88mm. (small). c -140x90mm. (large)., d 150xlO5mm. (special). In Aschor cblumn'NOTE means see the Note in Ascher's catalogue. -- ----------------------------------------------- SUMBERS D4'E FRO FROM ------------------- D E S C R I P T I 0 N OF .SIZE P : PLATE SKL. iSCCH. FRIG. SSUE B D -------- ---- ---------------------- --------------------------w- W t --- ----w -^----- o1 Note la Black no value (As illustr. 1. 1.; a 1 1 Son Page 31, Journal no. 54) i1872 a t ----..------------------------------------------- 2 2b 2a 5 kop. green. Line 1. 105 5. 1.i j to 105.5mm. Type I. 1872 j a 2 1 S--- -- ------ ------. ... 2a 2b Same as No. 2, except no i period after inscription a 2 at the left. Type I. ----------- --- ------ ------- -----------,-i 2b 2a -- Sane as No. 2, except the i Inscription is 103 to 105.5 a 2 1 Smm. Type II.. I -- Note 'i Same as No. 2a, except l S... Type II. a 2 1 ---- P-- -4---------- ---- f#55 Page 4', "---.------ ----------------- .-. ---- -- - N U I B E R S .. FROM FROM " "--------------- DESCRIPTI 0 N OF SIZE P LATE PLATE SKL. ASCH. PRIG. ISSUE B D *----- ---.-.------------------ ---------------- ---------'- --| -- 3 3a 4 kop. light blue green. 4. 1. a 2 1 SWithout "and abroad". 1875 ..--- ----.---- -------------------------------- ------ -- -- 3b Variety similar to No. 2a a 2 1 -- -- -- -- -- -- ----------------- ----- ;4 !4 l a 4 kop. green (shades), with .1876 a 2 1 ""and abroad" added at bottom. ------ ------------------------------------------------ - 4a 4 4b Variety See No. 2a a 2 1 ----' Note .------ .----------------------.---------- --' -----------. 4b 4a 4c Same as No. 4, except 2nd. a 2 1 letter 2nd. word of inscript. on back bottom is missing. ------------------------------------------------------------- "-- 4b 4d Same as No. Z, except the inscription on back is invert- a 2 1 ed. ------ ------- --------- ----------------------- --- -------------------- 4d -- Russian letter "r" instead of ""p" is inserted in the empty a 2 1 space.of No. 4b. ------------------------------------------------------ 5 5 5a 3 kop.-black. 4. 1. b 3 1 i----(-------------------------------------------------- 6 6 6a 3 kop. carmine, text black. Apr. a 4 2 --------------- -------- -------. ,4-------- -------- 7 7 7a 3 kop. carmine, text black, 'May, c 5 2 Type I. Period after Souz 1886 in line with 1R" in line below. L- 1--^-----------------------------------------** -- 7a 7 -- 3 kop. carmine, text black, Note' Type II. Period after c 5 2 Souz cuts thru "P- in line Below. ------ -------------------------------------- -------- ------ 8 8 8a 3 kop. lus 3 kop. carmine, c 5 2 text black. --.------------------------------- 8a 8b Same as N6. 8, except no c 5 2 accent over upayee". --------------------- ----- 8b -Same as No. 8, except no accent over first "eu of c 5 2 "reserve". --- c -------------- ------------- ------------------- ------- Page 48 #55 S ----- o--~-~ nC- ---- ------- * NUMBERS DATE FROM FROM ------..------- DESCRIPTION N OF SI PLTE PLATE SKL. IASCH. PRIG. ISSUE B D -- ------------------------------------------- 9 9 9a 3 kop. carmine, text black. Jutl, c 5 2 -------------- ------ ---------------------------- "10 1C lOa 3 kop. plus 3 kop. carmine, c 5 2 text black. -.------------------------------------------------- T Same as No. 10, except no :10a --- period after addresss, c 5 2 bottom line. ------------------------------------------------------ -- 11 11 lla 4 kop. carmin3, text black. c 6 2 p.-.--------- _------- --. ._-..------------ ------ s -- ---------- ----------- 12 12 12a 4 kop. plus 4 kop. carmine, c 6 2 text black. -------------------------.------ z----------- L&------------------- ------------------------ 13 13 13c 3 kop. carmine. 26 dcts/2cm. March c 5 2 S. 1890 ------------------ -------------------- -------------- ------------- 13a Same as Nc. 13, except .1893 c 5 2 L 31 dots/2cm. ---------------------------- ---------- -.-----*-- --------------- !14 15a 14a. 3 kop. plus 3 kop. carmine, 1889 c 5 2 26 dots/2cm. S ----------------------------- --- .------------------ --------------------- f15 14 15a 4 kop. carmine. 26 rlots/2cm. 6 '2 -------------- ----------------------------- w-------- ----------------------- Same as No. 15, except no ... 115a -- accent ovor st. ne". of c 6 2 I reserveo i ------------------------------------ ------- -------------- 16 16a 16a 4 kop. plus o kop. carmine, c 6 2 S ;26 dots/2cm. L ----------------------- ----------------- 17 .15b 14b 3 kop. plus 3 kcp. carmine, Oct. 31 dots/2cm. 1889 c 5 2 ---------------------------- -------------- -------------- 4 16b 16b 4 kcp. plus 4 kop. carnino, 1900 c 6 2 : 31 dots/2cm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------d.--- 19 171 17a 3 kop. cr.rmino. 26 icts/2cm. 1906 c 7 "3 ---------------------------------------------- w--------------- ------ --------------4 '20 181 19a 4 kop. carrine.. 26 dots/2cm. c 7 3 ------ ----------------------------- .-------------------- --------. - -- 1711 17b 3 kop. carmine. 31 dots/2cm. 1907 c 7 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------- w---------i 22 1811 19b 4 kop. carmino. 31 dots/2om. ?7 3 -- ----------------- ------ -------- #55 Page 49 NUMBERS D. -- FROM FROM ------------- DESCRIPTI ON OF SIZE PLATE PLATE SKL. ASCH. PRIG. ISSUE B' D 23 1911 18a 3 kop. plus 3 kop. 1907 c '7 3 31 dots/2cm. ---------- ------------------------ 24 2011 20a 4 kop. plus 4 kop. c 7' 3 31 dots/2cm. 25 211 21a 3 kop. carmine. 23 dots/2cm. 1909 c 7 3 7 -------------- W--------------------------------------------------- 25a 2111 :21b 3 kop. carmine. 31 dot/2cm. c 7 3 ------------------------------------------------------------ --- 21c 3 kop. carmine. Mixed dots. c 7 3 --------------------- w---------- ---------------- 26 231 22a 3 kop. plus 3 kop. c 7 3 23 dots/2cm. ------------------------------------------ w ---------- ;----------------- 26a 2311 22b 3 kop. plus 3 kop. c 7 3 31 dots/2cm. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- ------------- - 26b 23III 22c 3 kop. plus 3 kop. c 7 '3 Mixed dots. -------------------- ----------------- --------- 27 22aI 23a 4 kop. carmine. 23 dots/2cm. c 7 3 3rd. lino 35.5mm. --- ----------------. --------- -------------- -- 23b 4 kop. carmine. 23 dots/2cm. c 7 3 3rd. line L .Omm. ^* ------------------------------------------- -------- --------------- 27b 22aII 23c 4 kop. carmine. 31 dots/2cm. c 7 3 3rd. line 35.5mm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- 27c 22bII 23d 4 kop. carmine. 31 dots/2m. c 7 3 clrd. line 41.Cmmr. q -I------------------------ ------------- ---- ------------ 27d :22aIII 23e 4 kcp. carmine. Mixed clots. 3rd. line 35.5mm. c 7 3 -----------------W--------------!------------- ----------------- S ---,--- 23f 4 kop'. carmine. Mixed dots. c 7 3 3rd. line I.0mm. -------- ------------------------------------ ---------- -------------- 28 241 24a 4 kop. plus 4 kop. c 7 3 23 dots/2cm. ---------------------------------------------- S- 2411 24b 4 kop. plus 4 kop. c 7 3 31 dots/2cm. L - -- -- ------------------------------------- ---- 24c 4 kop. plus 4 kop. c 7 3. mixed dots. . Pae 50 -----------55 Page 50 #55 ---~---~-L--~--L---------C----------------------------------- SNUMBERS DATE FROM FROM -. -,- DESCRIPTION N OF SIZE PLITE' PLTE SKL. LSCH. PRIG.. ISSUE. B D ---------------- W---------------- w------- w------- ----1-- - 29 25 25a 3 kop. carmine. 1913 c 8 4 --------------L --------------------------------------------------------- I--------- 30 27 j 26a 3 kop. plus 3 kop. carmine. c 8 4 -----------r-------------------------------- -------4------- - 31 26 27a 4 kop. carmine. c '8 4 ----------------------------------------- -------- 32 28 28a 4 kop. plus 4 kop. oarmino. c 8 4 -- ---- ----- -- -4----- ---------- K E RE SK I PR O V IS I 0 .; L G O VERNMENT --------------------------------- S33 29 29a .5 kp. brown violet 1917 9 5 --------------- -------------------- 34 30 30a 5 kop. plus 5 kop. brown c : 9 5 violet. -------..--- ---~-- --------------------____ --___-_----_-_ -- ---- ---------- to be continued 030000000000CC00000000 oCooooooocooccococccooocooooococoocoocoooocooooocooocoooccocoooooo-oo OOOOOOOOOOCCOOCCOCOCCOCOOC OOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOCCOOOOOOCOOOOCOOOCCooOOC OOOO00Doe 00 00 o Extensive Stock.............. o o . o RUSSIA & STATES & 0 OFFICE S; o o o "o Stamples covers, postal stationery, stamp rarities and regular issues, o "o proofs, essays, varieties, cancellations, covers. Inquiries invited, o o o o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 o o CCOCO S A M U EL R A Y ocooooo o o o '0 o o Also, professional mounting and writing-up of collections. o 0oooo0co0 coococo00o0oo0ooooooooooc00000c00oocoooooooo00o000oooooooooo0000 0 C o I have many duplicates of paper money for sale and exchange. o 0 0 o o o M. .M. BYC K OFF o o 0 o 0.o. P. 0. BOX 90, ERYTE; CALIFORNIA, o o o ooooo0ooooooooooococ ooooooco coocoooooc oooPoooooooc0oooboccooooooooooooco0 #55 Page 51 ZENSTVO STA.PFS OMITTED BY CHUCHIN by N. Matishev (Continued from No. 54, Page 51) 48. RGHEV 7av3k. same, without punctures. 17-Two types. lla-3k. blue oval, orange center.18a-varietyof 3k. with white dot in 16aw6k. same, permeating color, lower .:Lht corner. 49. OSA 4a-2k. yellow green, on light green background. O1a-4k. yellow green, on brick red background. 12a-2k. imperforate. 24d-4kJ imperforate. 22a-2k. tete-beche. 26c-2k. on ordinary paper, imperfor.te. 22b-2k. blue green. 28a-2k. imperforate. 22c-2k. yellow reeon. 50. OSTROV la-5k. green.. 5a-3k. light green. 3a-5k. black on yellowish paper. 51.OSTROGOZHSK . la-lk. on white lined paper. lb-lk, on yellow papor. 2-known in two types. 4-known in two types. 4a-lk. on ribb d paper. 4b-lk. ordinary paper, color permeating. 4c-31. on ordinary yellowish paper. 4d-lk. on ordinary bluish paper. 52. CKHANSK 6b-3k. light blue lla-2k. green, imperforate. 9b-5k. without red color. 13b-2k. light blue. 53. PEREYASLAV 13a-5k. imperforate. 1_.-5k. imperforate. _-3k.light blue, imperforate 54. PERM la-non permeating color. 15 & 16-printed on paper of various thickness. 2a-3k. without period after "cep.". 17-1918-15k. red, relief print, 3a-3k. without period after "cep.". 17a-on pasted together paper. 13a-2k. red. l7b-1918-15k. with red line at top. 17c-15k.-1918-15k. red, with red line at top on pasted together paper. 55. PODOLSK lb-5k. blue green, without punctures. 8d-5k. blue green. 4b-5k. dark green. 8e-5k. green. 6a-5k. perforatodl2-. LQc-green & permeating brown color. 7b-5k. tverdi znak instead of miagki znak in PODOL6%KAGO. (all shades of 7c-5k. broken "P' in PODOL6SAGQ. No. 7 occur with filled in bottom of 7d-5k. green, perf. 171. "5" in the right top corner.), 7e-5k. blue green, perf. 11I Page 52 #55 NEW SOVIET ISSUE DEDICiTED TO THE 100TH ;iTIVELSARY OF THE RUSSL.N ST2MPS (1858-1958) By Kurt cler Somewhat belatedly (the first Russian stamp issued in December 1857) the Soviet postal authorities issued a set o' ;2 stamps to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian stamp. Mr. Barry points out that only the postmarks described in 7#54 mentioned 100th Anniversary of 1st. Russian stamp "these issues commemorate 100 years of Russian postage stamps'. Actually, the delay is justified by two factors. the first Russian adhesive label was officially designated for circulation starting January 1, 1958, and the delay of a few months enabled the postal authorities to issue a beautifully designed multi-colored set. Nine of the stamps carry the ins- cription "History of the post". Three values are of supplementary import- ance. The stamps are printed on unwatermarked paper and are perforated 11x12j for the horizontal stamps, and E 1 xll for vertical stamp. It is possible that some, or perhaps all values exist with line perforation 12., Just as color variations may exist, but this will not be established right away. We have to wait for more material to come out of Russia. All of the stamps bear the inscriptions "Hundred years of the Russian stamp". The historical part of this set starts with two stamps of 10 kop. value, followed by two 25 kop., 40 kop., two 60 kci.. and two 1 ruble stamps. The stamps without the inscription mentioned above compromise three 40 kop. values. DESCRIPTION S 10 kop, black, red, yellow & purple. Time XV century. The stamp depicts a ducal scribe writing a letter which is being dictated by his master. These first beginnings of mail in Russia had to do with so-called Yamy. According to Prigara, these early mail service -rore initiated during the reign of Duke Ivan III (1462-1505). 2. 10 hop. yellow, black, pale red, pale purple & brown. Time XVI century. The inscription reads "Gonetsf, which means tho early mail carrier. We see a mail rider on a horse, blowing his post horn in an old Russian town. 3. 25 kop. ultramarine, pale blue, pale green and gray. Time XVII century. This stamp has a portrait of the originator of the first regular postal service, the Bcyar .L. Ordyn-Nnshchokin who served under Tsar Aliexei- Miklhailovich. The first service was initiated in 1666. Besides the portrait the strmp shows a mail-sled leaving a town. A postillion is riding ahead, blowing his horn, another rider sits on one of the three horses, and still another man guards the mail at the back of the sled. 4. 25 kop. ray,. pale grey, ultramarine. Time XVIII century. This stamp shows us an already ol.-ztrately built post office, with guard house in which a soldier stands, and a postal diligence (post chaise) with a team of four horses, deiven by a man sitting on the front seat of the diligence. The postillion is riding ahead on his horse, merrily blowing his horn. This postal period took place under the reigns of Peter the Great and Cztherine II. S Page 54 #55 5. kop. brown.violet. brown-red, siena. Time .X1I century The century of the first Russian stamp. The stamp depicts a typical Russian Troika in full motion. Tho inscription says "Postal Troika". We see an isvost- chik trying to guide the throe horses that pull an open wagon in which two officers or higher postal authorities are seated. We must assume that the mail was carried in the back of the wagon. The last 3 stamps of the "historical" part of this set depict contemporary means of mail transportation. 6. 60 kop. purple, light purple, green & brown olive. Period of the Civil 'War and the beginning -of re-organization after the First World War. ThiTj stamp shows a portrait of V. N. Podbyelsky, or -"ser of communication During the years 1918-1920, the early years of ; I RSFSR Other scenes, depicted on this stamp show the mailing of a 2.eIter by a worker in a mail box attached to a horse-drawn wagon, and letter carriers distributing mail to-soldiers and civilians. 7. 60 kop. green, vray & purple. The Period ought to be the late twenties or early thirties. This stamp show the well-known Russian Railroad Mail Car, loading:mail at a station stop. 8. 1 ruble br owniellow, light purple & grayish blue, This stamp is dedicated "to the Air Mail service. *He see a four-motored plane, standing at an air- field. Mailbags are brought to it a little motorized cart. 9. 1 ruble purple, oranoe gray & black. This stamp bears the inscription "Transport". It is a symbolical picture of modern means of transportation. On the background of the globe and the Moscow Univearsity there are the latest models of streamlined deisel engine train, steamship "Rossia", and a jet plane. The 3 additional values without inscription "History of the Post", but inscribed "Hundred Years of the Russian Stamp", are- 10. 40 k*p. purple & gray brown. In thi center is shown a stamp of 1947 (Scott No. 1093) with a portrait of Lenin on the background of Moscow University and a warship, with a quotation from Lenin, reading. "Socialism without post, telegraph, machines is an empty phrase". 11. A0 ko., red yellow. ervy & brown. Show a syr1- .ical picture of'the lato'b Soviet jet plane. In the background, shadow- are the three horses c- the postal troika. 12. 40 kop. dark brown & light brown. (Vertical rectangle) The museum in Leningrad where the centenary exhibition of Lussian stamps took place is shown. The inscription reads "Jubilaeum Exhibition of the Government Collection of Postal Stamps". In a vignette, the words 100 years- of the Russian stamp" are repeated. #55 Page55 S None of these stamps show the 10 kopok stamp of the First Issue of 1857. A crude likeness of this stamp, however, exists on a special cancel- lation affixed during the Moscow Philatolic Exhibition, opened on January 25, 1958. This cancellation was illustrated in Rossica #I54. The postal authorities also released an entire (envelop) for each stamp of the series. There are 3 types of special cancellations known to me. (1). In black, used on the opening day of centenary exhibition 19.8.58, showing a postillion on horseback, and a parchment with seal, reading "100 Years of the First Russian Postage Stamp 1858-1958". (2). A red cancellation used at the Centenary Exhibition on first day. It shows a globe, circled by an airplane and what probably is a sputnik. (3). No. 2 cancellation in black, which was used on the following days of the exhibition. (4). No. 2 cancellation in black for the Capitol Cities of USSR) the inscript- ion reads "USSR" (at top) and Name of Capitol City and "100 Years of Russian Postage Stamps" (at bottom). The author so far has seen cancel- lation from B A K U and R I G A. Al1 of the cancellations have a double circ .f inscriptions, At top - Ministry of Communications of USSR. At bottom L::zibition. 100 years of Russian PostageStamps. Left of center 1858. Pi-ht of Center 1958. In center, framed 19.8.58. Some entire, also have the posthorns and thunderbolts of the Imperial Ministry of Post and Telegraph perforated into the entire. 3 stamps of this set wore also issued imperforate and will be listed and described as more information is available. ooo00ooooooooooooooo PHILATELIC lDNTURES IN EUROPE 1957 by Jacques Posell Prrt II After leaving Madrid we spent a few days in Portugal, then departed for for Bordeaus where I found several stamp stores. I visited two dealers who had nothing whatever in Russian stamps except large packets or recent commemo- ratives all mixed up and with no sets complete. I was told there was no dealer in the city who had any stock of Russia. In the Rossica membership list there is an Albert Magne who lives in Bordeaux; however he was not listed in the telephone directory and none of the dealers knew of him so I was not able to contact him. Page 56 #55 * From Bordeaux we flow to Berlin. Berlin has many stamp dealers but unfortunately we arrived late Saturday when everything was already closed for the weekend. On Monday I had time to visit only one dealer and his stock of Russian stamps was about the, same as that of the deaLers in Bordeaux. Berlin to Stuttgart by air again. Arrived late afternoon, and found one stami dealer who had the recent colorful commemoratives but nothing earlier than Soviet Issues. Nowhere, since Brussels, did I find any.extra-catalogue material such as revenues, locals, vignettes, etc. From Stuttgart to Basel a beautiful little city where they speak a strange brand of German; of course Stuttgart has its own famous dialect tec Basel'has one dealer listed in the telephone directory but I didn't have t1.:, to visit him as this was one of our busy days with no time- to spare. The: was a letter for me at the hotel from Tchilinghirian and it is arranged tL..: we will meet at the station in Geneva.. He will ry with him a journal '.f. the BSRP. o that I may recognize him. This wi..-.3 s short visit but I loo, forward to it eagerly as we have been in correspon:lence for a long time. We were scheduled to give two concerts in Prague but they were cancelled McCarran Act trouble. The Prague Philarmonic is supposed to make ?n Americal tour next year. The McCarran -ct calls for fingerprinting the entire .orches- tr. when it arrives 'to: New York. The Prague Orchestra does not wish to be fingerprinted so they said that if this ceremony is not waived in their favor they would not permit Cleveland Orchestra to ccme to Prague. It is as simple as that. We are travelling through the Swiss Alps now which are truly beao.- tiful and impressive and somehow different than the American Rockies in Colorado and Utah. . Yesterday I had a very short'but stimulating visit with Tchilinghii-ian. He was supposed to meet me at the Geneva train platform but somehow we got our.signals crossed and he was not at the station. I therefore went on to the-hotel and just as I arrived, he drove up in a taxi carrying the BSRP journal. We went into the hotel coffee shop and sat down for two hours of talk. The time went by very- quickly and when we parted at 7:15 I felt we haa just begun. He is a highly educated cultured gentleman and I'regret exceeding that I could not stay longer with him and get to know him better. He told me of his forthcoming series on the Russian Offices used abroad and we spoke at great length about the possibility of publishing the revenue and vignette catalogues of Emile Marcotitch. He could not stay to hear our concert as there was no late train back 'to Clarens, and we parted hurriedly. .In Paris I visited Dmitri Kandaourow, Rockling of Romeko and in the evening had dinner with Kovychine; all in the '--ests of Rossica and JRi; philately.. I bought somo material from Kandao. : a few postcards show,:.:-: Russian troops in France, postal stationery, vi-)nbtes, etc. Kandaourow :.i ,a e.ally nice fellow and though he drives a hard :bargain, I like him just in :' same.. H showed me a very nice collection of Russian Red Cross envelopes which.was not for sale at the moment, also a few interesting Siberian covers of the Russo-Japanese War which I thought might be of interest to Adler or to Tchilinghimian and gave him their addresses. #55 Page 57 * From Kandacurow I -ropped over tc see Romeko (Rockling). There I got a very different reception. He has a large office in an apartment building an and he was strictly business; he had a collection of about 500 zemstvos the great majority of which I already had. I asked for revenues, vignettes, postal stationery, Soviet air mail labels but he 2- none of those. We played our last concert in Amsterdam.. Mr. Prins called for me at the hotel. After an excellent home cooked dinner (for which I was very gratedul) we settled down for a session of stamps while the rest of the family went for a swim at one of the nearby beaches. His Russian collection consists of at least twenty volumes or more, and since there wasn't time enough to go through them all in one short afternoon, I asked to see part of his Zemstvo collection first. These are quite complete, beautifully arranged and writtc, up, with the various printings, type settings, varieties, all clearly marked Some of the sheets have been completely plated and it was an education for me to see this display. In his other albums I remember he was particularly strong in the RUB revolutionary overprints and he also had an excellent display of the crossed swords and abdication overprints on the Romanoffs. Besides his general collection, which was excellent, there were many unclassified revenue stamps and labels.. His collection is very representative of Russian philately in al' its phases and it was a pleasure to see his many albums, all neatly arranged and labeled according to country and period. Unfortunately I did not have time to visit with two other well known Russian collectors in Holland; Mr. J. V. Stuart and Mr. Schmidt. Perhaps some day in the future I shall have the pleasure of meeting them also and seeing their collections. In the evening we all drove to Schoveningen where the Prins' attended our last concert in Europe. All in all, it was a wonderful trip from every angle rnd especially wonderful is it for me to discover how philately opens the door for one in a strange country, and how one makes new friends -nd meets interesting people in all walks of life who will give freely of tl-. time and hospitality to follow collectors. I hope some day to be able to reciprocate in kind to to those kind people who have been sc kind to me. ooocoooooooooooo NOTES FROM C 0 LLECT RS Dr. A. H. Wortman, Editor British Journal of Russian Philately. At Boston I saw Dr. Snegireff's outstanding items, although not all of his collection. He also showed me two parchment documents, one was signed by Empress Catherine II and the other by Peter the Great, an officer's commission. He has the most fantastic out-of-the-way items. He showed me Tiflis, ox Goss collection stationery proofs and four of the broad tailed eagle 20 kop. envelopes. He had a stationery exhibit mounted on large black cards for a show here recently. His 20 kop. enveloped were cancelled. In Toronto I met Drew Cronin. He is a grand fellow too, as well as being a brilliant philatelist, especially for one so young. Largely due to Page 58 #55 to him I acquired some more outstanding items in Toronto; a Russo-Japanose War cover, POLEVAYA POCHTOVAYA -ONTCRA I ARM. KCRP SA from the 146th infantry Tsaritsin -Regiment,a POVIESTKA of Podolsk with Zemstvo stamp and a postcard from a P. 0. W. to Germany of 1st. World War from Nikoleavsk on Amur; with a most intriguing postmark which reads SHKHUNA AMUR. LIMA. TATAR. FROLIV, as well as a number of P. 0. W. cards with unusual Censor markings; most of these were given to me by Drew, bless his kind heart. .These,together with all the othe4 good things. I found on your side of the ;.ilantic., not least those very fine Romanov stationery covers which you so kindly gave me, as well as the rare unrecorded type of "STARY AFON" postmark on ROPiT Romanov 1 kop. block, and others, will always remain as momentoes of a wonderful trip to America. I met a young collector, Harry Sutherland, in Toronto; he has the rig.. ideas and, under Cronin's guidance is taking ih+"ist in covers. He has L very early Harkow 1897 with Shanghai Pochtovryr: tora postmark, the earjl.- I have seen. He also asked my interpretation c.. postmark on a 7 kop. stip, Only half was visible and neither Cronin nor I had ever seen anything like it before. When I arrived home I found.this samepostmark on a piece in full. sent in by Freyman of South Africa for comment, It is iin ah ovl, ii script with a ship at the foot and reads AEIJSANDROVSK KHERSON, DLIA UNICHTOZHENIA MARCK. A fascinating item'and as Sutherland said, an almost unbelievable coincidence. May I say what a fine number the last .issue, of Rossica was. 'I can adce a little to Peel's article on the Charity stamps for the record: Colored papor. 10 kop. Parf, llci. Cano. St. Petersburg, 21.1.14 3 kop. Perf. 12. Canc, St. Petersburg, 12, 4.15 White Paper. 1 kop. Porf. 13*-. Cane. Rostov on Don, 22. 3.16 3 kop. Perf. 13i. Cane. Vladivostok, 26. 2.16 Pate Numbers, C-olored aper." Perf, *12i, 3 kop. 2 a, sideways in carmine between 95 and 96. A. M. Rossolevitch in correspondence, with Dr, C. de Stackelberg re so called varieties. Charity Issue 1914-15. Th6re' are no errors or varieties of color c:, paper, except 7 kop. white paper, not issued. All poper varieties were made on 3 kop. white paper, and one on 10 kop. white poEr. 1. .a) in Petrograd, by Trachtenberg. b) in Paris, by our friend S. (1ir. X) al:. The 10 kop. blue paper, Why does J. Reynolds lists them in his catalogue as 0. K. writes Dr, C. de Stackelberg. 2. 1 R. of 1909-1923. Not an essay of 1918 as listed by Romeko. -. : Greenish background exist. They and 1 R. of 1902-04 and. 1909 laid paper with same greenish background are all made chemical by S. in Paris, as well as I R. with blackish background, #55 Page 59 Only 50 stamps of 10 rubles with blue gr-y center, misplaced up, exist. il others are chemical changolings produced by S. in Paris John Barry England. One of our BSRP members Mr. Lennard acquired an illustrated Pushkin cover. It has a stamp photograph of Pushkin, a picture of his tomb (1799) and over it a facsimile of his signature. It was mailed from Stavropol on July 29, 1899 by RR route 99 to Budapest. It has a brown charity label on the back "For the Benefit of SPB Red Cross Soci'- '. It is quite an unusfzl and raro item for those days. He also has S.G. 422, in sage green (not reported before) and a 2 ruble Repin in slate grey instead of violet, which is probably an error of color or a color proof. Mr. Fawcett, new member of BSRP writes that he has picked up the I ruble Lrms Type of 1917, perforated 11- (unlisted). Joe Chudoba has 1 copy and Filby 2 copies of 3 rubles 50 kop. of the same set, all perforated -ll rough. The Soviets never used ll- when reissuing Imperials and contrary to what one would expect put out clean perforated 13* stamps. No cancelled copies have ever been seen with this ll perforation and until one turns up, if ever, I shall continue to beltave that, lonr time after, someone has been doing housework on imperforate sheets to make the 11 perforated stamps and varieties. Dr. C. de Stackelberg states that when he obtained his copies of stamps perforated 11l- in 1923/24 from Serge Rockling of Romeko, Paris, he was told * that they were issued in Tiflis in 1921. Tiflis varieties are listed perfo- rated 11j. Romeko lists only 5 ruble variety. He states that he has never heard of RUBLE values existing in that perforation and that he only has the kopek values. The 1 kop. perforated 11 was bought.from Romeko, who stated then that it was originally bought in Novo Moskovsk, Ukraine in 1918, but that he suspects it was of private origin (un-official). Rep:arding Hughes sale. Fellow called from Dublin and said hetd found a sheet of Tiflis stamps, in some of Hughes materials he bought. We knew nothing of it, and it sees neither did the aucti'-ocrs who must have passed it as some kind of a Zemstvo. So there's somethi -o missed by not getting Hughes stuff. Editorial Comment. Hm! Seeing is believing. Volga Famine Issue. It is interesting to note that stamps of this issue vary in size from 0.25 to 1mm. It is said that they wore printed by the workers of GOZNACI (Government Printing Shop), on their own time, on waste paper, i.e. on the paper left over from the 2nd Soviet Issue, mostly 1 to 40 ruble values (S. G. Nos. 208 to 212). Partly watermarked stamps of this issue, resulted when the selvedge from the watermarked 40 ruble sheets was not cleanly cut. It is not generally known that all of the old Imperial paper was used up for Soviet issues of 1922, SG Nos. 256-260. 40 ruble paper. pelure, and other scraps of paper were used, thus account g for shades and thicknesses of paper. Since the 40 ruble paper was placed on the presses in in various ways, the resultant watermir-k i: found in different positions. Sage 60 #55 T.P.O. Postmark Double Circle at top, between circles, reading clockwise "Manchuria-Moskva", at bottom, between two circles, reading counterclockwise "Express". In center, between two horizontal lines- widely separated, date 023'9 37". L.bove the top horizontal line, numeral O"" and below the horizontal line "I". We never know when the Soviets discontinued the use of T.P.O. markings. Soviet T.P.O. markings have always been difficult to obtain and they are rarb. They apparently had some in use up to 1937, and my latest one is about 1927. Ed Collins Detroit, with comments by J. Barry. Just how rare are the small round cancellations with the number 112 PCEZD" in red. St. Petersburg town #1 single line or circle I should-say St. P. May 10, 1893, arrived at Tsarskoe Selo on May 10 1893, the above 3 being in black. It is a rare piece. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 have now been reported, and it is quite likely there is No, 6 for the return run of No. 5. What do you know about a railroad cancellation of the "D" Type, listed in our Journal, in blue, but instead of the number at the bottom it has a Capital letter "lW- Route 4--1866. This couldn't be used in Poland. Could it,. Type D, Route 4 is round for St. Petersbur i :'rsaw route. The only cancellations that have a letter are the oval ones. Therefore' round ones with a letter at foot is something newly discovered, but for full confirm- ation a tracing is needed. None of mine 1865-66. or later show letters. Kurt Adler I have an interesting 1915 prisoner of war cover, with a registry labet which rdads Moscou K. Vaux-1 The K stands for Kursk. Vaux-1 is an abbreviation for Vauxhell. This word, .therefore, has now definitely been established as the origin of the Russian word Vokzal for Railroad Station. An explanation of the derivation of Vokzal from. Vauxhall may be found in #3 of B J R P. Vauxhall was, in the old times, the name for concert and dance halls, the first one belonging to a Frenchman, by the name of VAJX. In 1838, when the first railroad was built from' St. PBtersburg to Pavlovsk, the Pavlovsk terminal was right next to a concert hqll, called Vauxhall. Suway excursionists said "we are going to the Pavlovsk vookal"'. By and by,the uer.m begun to be used for any railroad station. The only interesting thing about. the cover in question is, that this old French name was still used on regiri;h: labels in 1915 instead of the correct word garee", as on other Russian po,- marks and registry labels. Franz See's remarks about Dr. Stackelbergs Roumanian stamps with Russian:Field Post cancellations. I want to say that the Russian F. P. during the Rus so-Turkish War was also functioning in the parts of today's R6tmania The postal service.for civilians was laid still in the Southern Roubanian and Western Bulgarian sections of the country, due to the war actions. But soon postal service was established" these sections, first by the Russian F. P,, and later by the Russian E :..-:snpost (could be translc:-. into Russian Post in occupied country), containing the names of towns. #55 FPge 61 Until Russian stam--s arrive'7, it was usual to rmy cash for each letter, later Russian stam-s wero used for franking. It is entirely possible that during the first period, letters were handled, franked by Roumanian stamps. Besides, S some Roumanian troops took part in the war on the side of Russia and it is possible that they used Roumanian stamps for franking letters. I, personally, have seen only stampless covers that were sent from Bulgaria to Roumania and vice versa during that period. Covers and rcstmarks from those parts of the country and from the time of the Russo-Turkish War are so rare that some things have to be assumed, without the possibility of establishing a definri.;.: proof. The number of the F. P. Office, however is 8 and not 3. Remarks about the January 1 cancellations anov stars. The 1 1. cover enclosed, is an answer to the question wh-_ : was raised about January - canclilations, following your series of articles n the Romanov Tercsnten- nary Issue in B J R P. I agree it should be written u- to confirm your theory, but have in mind that January 1st is that date for cancellation of letters collected that day but written a day before and posted. No stamps were old at P. 0. since it was a holiday. However, Romanov stamps seem to have been used even before their official release date. Letter from Caucasian front (Soe p-ros 17-20 of this journal). From the research made by Dr. C. 1de Stackelberg we can say that the writer of the letter in question vas Prince Emil von Sayan-Wittgonstein, Major General and General Lide at the Russian Court. The Crown Prince and Crown Princebs mentioned in the letter are the future King Karl of Wurttemberg and his w, C0ga Nikolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas I, who of course is also menti:::i in this letter. These above lines describe the writer of the letter. R. Sklarevski Inverted backrrcunds. (See rae 32 of this journal). We.quote from a recent letter of Kurt Adler's in reference to these stamps. Your discovery about INVERTEDB C KG 0 U N D S on rbstal Savings and Control stamrs is OTJSTDING ". "Undoubtedly the regular background of Control star:s has the loops to the left ( of which I have a full set off and on ccer". It will be well to say here that both the postal savings and the control stamrs are often found on covers. 25 anc' 50 ko. values are frequently f'-nd used on blank receipt 'est cards of meorican Rol Organizations, confir.:.nt the receirt of packages of food during the earl .'s of the Soviets. Ku states further the only stamp which I have with loors both up and down i1 tho 10 ruble". We -ropose to write a detailed article on these two issues, listing 1-: normal and inverted backgrounds for Journal #56, therefore we would like ' hear from readers. Fin-lly we want to caution the readers that the relative scarcity of various positions of backTrounds is unknown. It all depends on the manner in which the sheets were foe into the possos; it is quite -ossible that whe" more information is receive, we may alter the theory somewhat. Of-course, iocos with rla.te markings arc very im-ortant, but that is asking too much, P aBg 62 /55 Tadeusz Gryzowski Varsa Poland. I have a very interesting cover with a Polish and a Russian stamp, mixed franking. The Russian stamp is 10 kcp. 1858, perforatod 12- and Poland No, 1 cancelled by black killer No. 1, and red Warsaw 7/il along side. On the other side of the cover is a two concentric ring black pos<:rk, within which is the Russian marking, reading P 0 L U C H E N 0 V V I L N E or "Received in Vilna". Inside of the smaller circle is date (illegible) at the top, at the bottom of the small circle is Russian U T R b M or "in the morning'. In my opinion the sender brought this cover, already addressed and franked with a Russian stamp,from Vilna. In Warsaw he was told that he h'l to frank his letter with a Polish stamp, and he then affixed Poland No. 1, not wanting to destroy the envelope brought from Vilna. -The letter was e small one and 20 kop. postage was not needed. Ir. V. Dcmanski agrees with the ex-lanation givenn above. Laurence R. Tipmie, with an an*swor.by V. Domansa,' I received from a distant relative in Estonian S. S. R. a stamp which he says is a great rarity there. It was issued by officials cf a little town called A T E P I A in 1941 when the town was in no-mans land between the Russian fAmy and the German .rmy for some tino. He states that 500 co-ies were issued. Quoting Mr. Domanski : In my estimation this is a -rivato issues. I could not consider it of officiall source. This, has occurred many times in Russia, Ruthenia-Ukrainian Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. There are many issues of this tyre. One of my friends who collects Ukrainia showed me his vast collection, with items for which he paid enormous sums and later bitterly complained how he was taken over, for months !torr these stamps that he purchased and paid fancy i-icos for, he could have bought for about 1/10 of what he paid for thom. Vincent Domanski's collection. ie iortod by Messrs. Wortman and Salisbury, Dr. Wortman and your editor in orusing member Domanski' albums noted some interesting items. amongg these we note Russia No. 1 from Kronshtado to St. Ibtorsburg, with,according to Dr. Wortman, unrecorded until now postmark. The cancellation is enclosed in a large rectangular frame 46.5x20.nmr-. in size. Tc- line reads K R 0 N S H T A D T in capitals. The bottom line is date 30 M A Y 1858.- Our member, Mr. Feel has a Russia-No. 1, c-ncolled with a two line cancellation as above, reading R I G L 10 FE B. 58 ", but in a smaller rectangle. #55 Page 63 Eosti Post -Estonia (Scott Nos. 9 to 26).. Your Editor noted a fine collection of controversial stamps which should be recorded, especially as Mr. Domeanski is one of the greatest authorities and authors of hBaltics" to-day, The stamps in question are Estonia, Scott Nos. 8 to 26, "Eosti Post" overprints in black & violet on perforate and imperforate Arms stamps of Russia of 1909-17. We note a cover with 2 and 3 kop. (Nos. 9 & 10) and a 5 panni imperfcor ate, with a standard double circle cancellation of Estonia, dated 15.5.19 from Tallinn. He had the following: -Fbrforated. No. 9 2kop. green (2 copies) No. 15 15 kop. red brown & blue (2) No.10 3kon. red (2 copies) No. 16 25 kop. green & violet (3 1 c<.. No.ll 5kop. claret (2 copies) No. 18 50 k-. violet & green (l) No.12 -O1kop. dark blue (3 coLdes) No. 19 1 1 7 (1) T -erforate: - No. 21 -1 kop. orange (3, one canc. Talinn). No. 23 3 kop. red (1). No. 24 1 ruble (1) &. Prado Brazil. Recently I received a nice offer from Europe. To covers mailed from Moscow to Riga with mixed frankings. a. One 10 kop. Russia (No. 8) and Wondon, 2 kop.without arms in center (could be Mos. L4, 5 or 6). b. One 10 kop. Russia (No. 8) and Wenden, No. L3b (4 ko-. Packenmarko bisected diagonally and used as 2 kop.) Both, 12 kop. rate covers, well tied by clear cancellations on back and front were priced at $850,00. Some time ago, with the cooperation of my book seller I received a larQc. regional map of Russia Black Sea, Caucasus and part of Lsia. A, 1/840,000. This military map was edited in Tiflis in 1873 and shows the less importar, villages of the region. Recently in Corinpslia auction hold in Zurich I was lucky enough to secure some interesting lots, among them a comic' :eet of 4 of the 1863/o5i 6 kop. Russian Offices in Turkey on medium paper, -so a cover, mailed from Leningrad to Berlin by air, with the rod air labol, reading Envoye par la post aerienne ", with the 2nd n of aerionne inverted. %igo 64 #55 EX.ERTIZATION CO01IfITTEE OF ROSSICA SOCIETY Rossica Society members are hereby notified that an Expertization Committee has been appointed. The Committee will function in the following manner:- 1. Committee will expertize postage stamps of Russia 1858-1918, Russian Offices Abroad, Armies and Governments of the Civil War period (except Ukraine and Armenia), R S F S R and U S S R as to genuiness of the stamps, overprints and postmarks, also as to any imperfections and repairs made on the stamp, Exrotized, and pronounced genuine stamps will be marked on the back of the stamp with a special handstamp, reading "Rossica" in English. The Committee is also ready to give rivice and information, as well as approximate valuation in the -'d of Russian numismatiJ. and paper money of the Revolutionary RJ-. c and the Civil War. 2. The Meetings of the Expertization Committee will be held on Fourth Sunday of each month (exce t June, July and August), from 2t30pn to 5rpm in New York tity. ddress:-'Union of Russian Engineers Home of Free Russia, 386.West 86th Street, Now York, N. Y. 3. Expertizing is open to members of Rossica, as well as to non- members, with the same rules applying both to members and non members. The rules are enumeratod below. 4. Expertization is free to members of Rossica Society, submitting one to five items. A fee of 10 cents each will be charged for. items above five. Non-members will be charged 15 cents for each item sent for exprtization, except for those catalogue by Scott at $10.00 or more. For those the fee will be 2% of Scotti.valuation, for members of Rossioa-Socioty-as.well as for non-members. Same rules will apply for money as for philatelic itoms.. For more valuable collections special agreements maybe made with.the EX1ERTIZING COMMITTEE. 5. Items sent for' exirtizing will be returned to the owner, either by hand by a member of the,expertizing committee at the end of the nearest meeting of the EXLERTIZING COMMITTEE, or by Registered Majti, Expertizing as well as Postage. FEES must be sent by the owner of thY material to be exportized at the, same. time as the material is senrr This applies for material submitted by collectors living in U. S. or Abroad. "Registration Fee for regula-" -11 is 60 cents, Air M.:l. abroad is 70 cents for letters of norma eight and to Western Euz-co: For more distant places,-and for, hoaviue letters, it is necessary ,o consult United States Post Office for the rates. Both the Rossica Society and the Expertizing Committee are not responsible for the loss of letters or material in mail ",#55 ag 6 !' ', .S 6. In case of non inclusion of exptrtizinr postal fees, listed under (4) and (5), the material will be ...d up by the expertizing 0 committoo, until all the fees are raid u-. 7. All financial dealings with the expertizing committee will be done either in cash (U. S. money), chock, money order, mint U. S. or U. N. stamps or international postal coupons. 8. All members of the Exportizinr Committee will work without pay, -%md the money derived from oxportizing will be turned over into the treasury of the Rossica Society. 9. The expertizing committee consists of the following, listed al habetically. K. Z. Adler A. M. Rosselevitch P. P. Jemtchoujin N. V. Savitzky N. A. Kormilev (Money) H. M. Shenitz V. A. Rachmanoff Names of members of the Expertizing Committee, living outsio of New York, will be announced after the Annual Meeting of the Society in New York in November. 10. All correspondence for the exportizing committee must be addresrel to A. Rossolevitch. *. R OSSELEVITCH 93 18 C 0 R O N A VE. -ust 15, 1958 E L M H U R S T 73, w York L 0 NG I SL N D, N. Y. Rossica Society U. S. L. 00000000000000000000000 oooooooooooooooooooooo INTERFOSTL -International Exhibition of Postage Stamrs, Hamburg 1959. Duration of the Exhibition May 22 to 30, 1959, in Hamburg. Address INTERPOSTA Hamburg 36, Kaiser Wilhelmstr. 85. Exhibition Site The Exhibition will take race in the vast Exhibition Park of Planton un Blomen (near the "Dammtor" Station). Exhibition Premises Four largo exhibition pavilions will be made avai'.4 -':. In one of them postal administrations of the whcle worj : will exhibit their treasures, a further pavilion is reserved for stamp dealers. Exhibition Regulations Rospoctive details have been published in the f.- brochure of IENTRPOSTA (Write for your co-y). Final Date of Entry Definite and main entry must be affected on a speciaL ,ntry-form by J-' 5 y 75, 195'" (For dot-nils see first Sbrochixu ofIV TE S T A). Pago 66 r STAMPS OF THE RTISSIAN EMillRE UED. ABROAD PART THREE rsia, Khannates of Bukhara and Lhiva2 .SiAnBa Reviewed by Dr, BG Salisbury S. D. Tchilinghirian and W. S. E Stiehen. The British Society of Russian Philately. 94, High Street, Aborlour, Banffshiro, Scotland. Price 30/, United States and Canada $4.50. The classic series of books dealing with the Russian Used Lbroads continues in the same interesting, intensely breathtaking in scope, and most informative way, ,as the first two previously published. Geographica:hlc historical and postal history notes preceding 'o philatelic section of.or a tremendous amount of useful material, some of _-h is not easily availa.li to amst of the collectors. The maps, to the reviewer, are especially aFol- ing, as some of the offices shown there have defied and frustrated him, i.I search, even on the large mars of the regions, under discussion. The ship linos of the Casrian brought back memories of an uncle, a captain on.some o, the ships mentioned in the book. Collectors of ship mail postmarks will fr::- a great deal of valuable data on the Caspianand the Amu-Darya Steamers, hil. the Railway enthusiasts will appreciate the Ftrsian, the TranscasApan, Kagan-Bukhara railroad postmarks described and illustrated in this opuso Specialists in "China" will find Sin-Kiang section the most authoritative chapter of any read to-date, :on the subject. The bibliography is detailed and useful, and this reviewers studies in this field are cited, as they were in the previously published books. The staggering number of "now" offices discovered by the authors, is a tri-. bute to them as well as a proof that there is nothing final in philately aid that research can and does expand our knowledge. Postmarks of Ardobil and M1ku wore a pleasant surprise, the former, from the collection of our Rossica member, Mr. Kethro .(the only example known) while the latter, also a consular post office, was a total stranger. These posts of the Russian Imlprial Mission present a distinct challenge to the specialist. The offices of the Russian Postal Administration, Gumbad I Kabuz illustrated a fine -ostmark 'which is most rare on the Romanov-Issue of 1913I 7 kop. The agencies of the Russian Shipping Lineo, Engeli (now rhlevi) present a fascinating partial postmark Typ, 2, dced on a loose copy. of the 10 kop, 1909 issue. It was a thrill find. c; 219 oval, large and rc.,b attractive as well as rare postmarks of the Russe --aucasian Stepmship As.'>-. ciabion, as well as the single line "IVa.I KOIDSNIKOV' (COMPLETE reviow- has only a partial cancellation. The "Phrisienne", the "Turkmen" and the "Paquebot" wore also appealing, the former seems to be the earliest rec c--a".: on the Caspian, while the latter has been found on stamps originating fro; forsia. Staraya Bukhara postmarks, and chock list. should, be of great help to the collectors of the Khanate. The reviewer has a Staraya Bukhara comminer'. letter with the registry sticker of the Postal Telegraph Office there, anl .n accompanying postmark of Bukhara (without the "staraya" or "old") sent to "'.. eotersburg in 1900, showing a Baku transit .postmark. Karakul caneollati-run on Page 245 brought back memories, as this town and a railway str.tion on th" Transcaspian Line, with a Russian Postal Telegraph Office did a great deal of /55 Page 6; business in black lamb skins with EkAtorinodar, Kuban Oblast whore the re- viewer lived for thirteen years. Only one item has been recorded by the ^ authors so far. The Now Urgonch postmarks of the Khannto of Khiva, should be singled out. They are well illustrated, and some of them are areo, and tho2e are no covers kno.n, In the chapter on Sin-Kiang, we mast rraiso the page of Kuldja ills'-: tions of postmarks and registry labels. Some of t-Lho aor now to the ri:: - er. Dr. Tolman's registered cove:.- from Kuldja to T ing 6J,11,1912 is : wise shown, as well as one from Kuldja to TientAinm 2'?.1916, and an in-?u;.- letter from Chuguchak to Tientsin 10,6,1918, all sh.cw pieces, Those we :a1 seen not so long ago in New York. It vwas a Pla..L.T to eO again the om interesting cover, from the collection of our door friend George Russell o' Lukland, N. Z. which travelled registered from Stockholm to Kashgar on 25<. 1902, addressed to the Russian Consul-Goeeral fc r:csmissicn to explo-; Sven Hedin, showing arrival or transit cancello of the p.o. of Osh in in Forghana Province, in standard Type G, withLi. iy' arrival marking at Kash-ar. The lioce do resistance of the illustr- ted covers was one from tihe collection of Kurt Ldler, of the editorial stoiaf of Rossica Journal. It w the fabulous cover, registered and sent from Urumchi on 22.6.1906 cadressed tc a postal official at Moudon, Switzorlmad, franlod at Urumchi with a short set of KITLI ovori ints, and re-franked at Chupuchak with a short set of ordinary Russian stamps. Urumchi cancellation in Tyze lb. Once again the reviewer pays tribute to the thoroughness, diligence ?nd absorbing manner of the authors, in dealing with the most difficult phase ef * Russian philately. The series of handbooks is doubly valuable as it most needed not only by s-ecialists and medium collectors of this field, but by the collectors of all the countries which border on the Russian Empire, and which had Russian post offices in their domains. In closing, we should like to mention that many readers have asked for a s-ecial edition of the illustrations of the books, printed on one side only for cutting up, and pasting on album agos, for writing ur collections, etc. The booklet can be produced, without text, or cardboard cover, containing 650 illustrations of cancellations, total for parts 1-5 inclusive, and about 96 pages. The price can be around $2.00 if at least 100 sets are sold. Orders for this booklet may be sent now with your order for F.rt IV, which will appear early in January and will cover Uriankhai, Mongolia, China Proer. and the Lyaotung Leasehold. Price is $4.50, but to the readers who are members of the Rossica Society or the British Society of Russian Thilately i.T advanced, pro-paid price (before December 31, 1958) will be $3.00 for the _hrt IV, and $2.00 for every s-ocial booklet of the illustrations, men! :d previously. The edition is limited, so do not 0-- r in placing your ordc:-., L few ?brts I, 2 and 3 are still available. Th. already collectors items, especially in complete sets. oocooo00ooooco00ccooo0 it e 68 #5 T. EjVOLUTION OF PRICES OF RUSSIAN STAMFI by^_WLt erFuOenlob,_Sbjitze-larl^d The following Russian stamps were at auction in the 1939/40 Faberge Sale as well as in the 1958 Goss Sale. The lots are exactly the same and it is interesting to see how much they have incrro -'d in value in the intervening 18 years. Goss Lot #46. "A wonderful strip of 3 with huge margins at top and shqt margins at right, cancelled with three neat crosses; one stamp with a small stain on the back, otherwise superb and extremely rare". Goss Lot #157. "Dorpat double-lined, bi-lingual, a full strike tying a very deep shade to piece", Goss Lot M182. "Poltava, a large part of 1858 strike on a fine verticaL pair with good margins.but the lower stamp with a small defect at foot. Very rare.". Goss Lot #227. "Valk, a good strike tying a superb marginal adhesive to cover, at the back of which there is another strike of "he same handstamp with June 1858 date inserted by -mnuscript. Goes -. Lot #173. "Druskenniki in red with manuscript 1858 date ir violet tying a very fine adhesive to a large part of cove:;' whi.cha also shows a red Warsaw date stamp; stated to be the on..y known example ."1 Goss Lot #382. "Error watermark hexagons, a fine example with clear 18S0 date, one perforation .a little short but Ipobably the finest7-of four recorded copies." Goss Lot #3843. "Franco" in oval, a clear.blue strike on a fine adhesive on piece, (used in Laant), also showing part of Berdichev sCrirt type cancellation, extremely rare. *Scott No, S. Gibbons No, Goss Lot Estimated Realized F.tbergeNoeRealized 1 1 .#146 70 / 175 #103 l10 1 ; 1 157 15 30 # 18 6 1 1 '182 ,32 75 7 # 95 4/15 i - 1 1 #227 / 25 f 49 Rd125 5 6 1 1 #173 40 %-200 /116 Z 14 I 27c 31b '#382 Y350 Z 490 #243 77 : 28b 32b #384 60 ; 70 #'244 8/8 S1 1 f/257 28 J 100 Levant #3 8/8 #55 Ige 69 This comparison of prices could be continued for a long time. But the examples cited will suffice to show how much Classical Russian stamps have increased in value. CAS P Y AUCTION Dr. G. B. Salisbury We must note the 10k., 20k., and 301. blocks of fo.z of 1858 watern.L.>- perforated 14J, 15 stamps sold at the auction. Another item of interest . the Offices in Turkey 2k. brown and blue, 1865 issue, a vertical strip c. 3 with top sheet margin. Margins on all sides, blue cancellation, estii'-.' at $405.00. Another strir of same stamp joined to an additional strip of of three to form the tied blue K H I 0 S postmark, a rarity indeed. Same stamp, a vertical pair tied by blue 783 in dots to a small neat cover postmarked in blue Mi E R S I N A ", addressed backstamped "Beyrouth" was also sold at the same time. ooooooooocoooooooooo ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE GOSS SALE by Dr. G. B. Salisbury Part of the H. C. GOSS Russia was sold for % 22,462. Sale of the remainder should raise the total to Y 28,000. Pro adhesive covers (21 lots) realized % 286. Among those was a 1766 entire with a straight line ST. FETERSBURG believed to be the earliest known. St. Ibtersburg Town Post Postal Stationery commanded little attention and some of greatest rarities were not sold. The Moscow Town Post envelopes realized good prices and were in great demand. The early essays wore popul-r. 19 Mercury and Eagle essays of 1857 realized % 315, while 36 of 1857 Eagle essays brought % 310. Tiflis 1857, slightly defective stamp, Russia's 1st adhesive stamp fetched 175. Choise proofs of 1857 10k., twelve in number brought. 54'7 The 1858 10 kop. exceeded estimates. See Mr. Frauenlob's examples. Block of 10 proofs of 10 kop. frame in black brought 105, and a compario.; block of 6 of 20 kop. was sold for 4 65. The 1913 Romanov Tercentenary Issue provide the greatest realization of the Sale. Collection of 758 die proofs and .- .s realized 2 2,250. "Uniqucl study (F. Freitag, K. Adler, H. Shenitz, F. J. Fohs and I have tremendous "studies" of the same and huge collections), of World War I dumn: or mute cancellations brought % 725. Sec British Journal of Russian Thilately for the Series of articles based on above holdings, by Dr. G. B. Salisbury and F. Fleitag. Page 70 I55 This comparison of prices could be continued for a long time. But the examples cited will suffice to show how much Classical Russian stamps have increased in value. CAS P Y AUCTION Dr. G. B. Salisbury We must note the 10k., 20k., and 301. blocks of fo.z of 1858 watern.L.>- perforated 14J, 15 stamps sold at the auction. Another item of interest . the Offices in Turkey 2k. brown and blue, 1865 issue, a vertical strip c. 3 with top sheet margin. Margins on all sides, blue cancellation, estii'-.' at $405.00. Another strir of same stamp joined to an additional strip of of three to form the tied blue K H I 0 S postmark, a rarity indeed. Same stamp, a vertical pair tied by blue 783 in dots to a small neat cover postmarked in blue Mi E R S I N A ", addressed backstamped "Beyrouth" was also sold at the same time. ooooooooocoooooooooo ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE GOSS SALE by Dr. G. B. Salisbury Part of the H. C. GOSS Russia was sold for % 22,462. Sale of the remainder should raise the total to Y 28,000. Pro adhesive covers (21 lots) realized % 286. Among those was a 1766 entire with a straight line ST. FETERSBURG believed to be the earliest known. St. Ibtersburg Town Post Postal Stationery commanded little attention and some of greatest rarities were not sold. The Moscow Town Post envelopes realized good prices and were in great demand. The early essays wore popul-r. 19 Mercury and Eagle essays of 1857 realized % 315, while 36 of 1857 Eagle essays brought % 310. Tiflis 1857, slightly defective stamp, Russia's 1st adhesive stamp fetched 175. Choise proofs of 1857 10k., twelve in number brought. 54'7 The 1858 10 kop. exceeded estimates. See Mr. Frauenlob's examples. Block of 10 proofs of 10 kop. frame in black brought 105, and a compario.; block of 6 of 20 kop. was sold for 4 65. The 1913 Romanov Tercentenary Issue provide the greatest realization of the Sale. Collection of 758 die proofs and .- .s realized 2 2,250. "Uniqucl study (F. Freitag, K. Adler, H. Shenitz, F. J. Fohs and I have tremendous "studies" of the same and huge collections), of World War I dumn: or mute cancellations brought % 725. Sec British Journal of Russian Thilately for the Series of articles based on above holdings, by Dr. G. B. Salisbury and F. Fleitag. Page 70 I55 OVERHRINTS OF GENERAL WRANGEL IN CRIME & CONSTANTINOFLE (CGnLinund f7rom Page 12I I will now discuss both of the issues, which official were prepared in Constantinople on December 17, 1920 & February 23, 1921. Lack of space, does not allow me to discuss fully interesting documents, lists and reports which I posses either in original or in notarized copies. All of the quan- tities and facts, which are given below are taken from these papers, which are parts of the archives of the director of the '". sian Post in Constanti- nople Information on the quantities issued is unfortunately inaccurate; since a number of detailed lists in my possession has different quantities issued for the same stamp. Probably, some of the lists were prepared for propaga:t..a purposes and either the numbers.were rounded off, or given approximately. The most reliable lists, according to my point of view are #29, dated Janr:xTy 5, 1921 on the blank of Russian Post & #104 dated April 8, 1921. Total qu,.- .tity issued of 1st. set is 299,204 (other lists give approximately the sam ' figure, except .one which has -.305,800 stamps). ;2nd. set gives 375,750 sta:pi- (other lists vary from 363,350 to 397,400). The following paragrahs give the quantities overprinted of'different values, "Post of Russian Army". stamps of Russia, perforated: 1000r. on 1 & 2k. (200 each), 3k. (36,000), 4. (17,900), 5k. (18,300), 7k. (20,000), 10k. (4,700), 10/7k. (6,400); 5,O00r. on 3k. (88,100), 14k. (100), 15k. (8,000), 20k. (800), 20/14k. (300), 25k (3500), 35k. (5,600), 50k. (4 500), 70k. (9,100'). 10 Or. on lr. (3,690),3r. Sok. -.grey black (50), 3r. 50k. green brown (900t, 5rsT 25), 7r. black and yellow (i00), lOr. (700). 20 000r. on r. (750), 3r, 50k. green brown (600), 3r. 50k. grey black 50), 7r. black yellow (100), 7r. green & .rose (25), and 10r. (250). Stams of Russia - "Irperf orate: ,00r. on 1 & 5k. (100 each), 2 & 3k. (200 each), 4k. (not mentioned at atll ; 500..on 3k. (400), 15, 35 & 50k. (100 each), 70 k. (200) 10.000r. on lr. (8,1001, 3r. 50k. (700), 5r. (100),.7r. (50); v20000r. on .r, T8,000o, 3r. 50k. (100), 5r. (700), 7r. (50); Postal Savings Stamps: 1iOrQ, o on k, _(200), 5 and 10k. (6,600 each); Stamps ca vant 1910. 1 000r. & 5,000r. (100. each)) *IQV .r. on 10pi./lr. (60) O.OOcr. (360 Stainp6 of Levant 1912-13: e0h0r. and 5.0003. (100 of eac.t, IQQ00o r. on 50pi./5r, and 100pi./lOr. (25 eachT, 20.00r on 50pi./5r. (200), l.OpiO10r. (50)5 Stamps of General Denikin "One Russia": 00. on 51. (3O900d, l0k. (9,800), 15k. (2,800), 35k. 0(3,989),.. 70k. (10,200); 310OOOr. on 70k. (not. mentior.!.d at all) ,on 3, 5 & 10r. (90 eetch), Ir. (900), 2r. (145), 7r. (30); 2p0p., on lr. (510), 2, 5 & l0r. (300 each), 3r. (150), 7r. (50). "Russian Post"'. stamps of Russia' perforated: 0,.OOOr. on 1 & 2k. (100 eac'-.^ ...3, 5 and 7k. (2,000 each), 4k. (2,500); 20 000r. on 15k. (1,000), 20k. ((2,000), 35k. (300), 50k. (2,,500), 70k. (50). Stamps of: Russia, imperfcrrWti 100 of each, but 4, 5, tand 50k. are not listed. anywhere. 1909 and 1910 sBa-pe of Levant (100 of each). 1912-13 stamps of Levant, 100 of each, except 3pit./35k. (200). Stamps of Ukraine, Odessa (Double lined trident), 31000(1. on 1k. imperforate (15,750), 3k. imperforate (500), 2k. perforate(50). # 55 Page 71 :. .::^ I "~' ';. -*_ ' Odessa (small trident), perforated. 10000r. on Ik. (4,000), 3k. (100), 7k. (5,500); 20,000r. on 20 & 5k. (100 coach ; 20/14k not shown; imperf- orate. 10000r. of 1k. (3,400), on 3k. (4,900); 20000r. on 35k. (50), 5Ck. (10), Odossa (elongated trident), perforated 10Q.00r. on Ik. (100), Ick. (400); 20.000r. on 20k. (3,300), 56k. (28,000o ; imrorforate, 10,000r. on Ik. (600), 50k. (100). Kharkov, 10000r. on 1k. (100), 2k. (200). Ekatcrinoslav prorated, 10,Or. on Ik. (30 600). 3k. (39,300), 4k. (7,900), k. 200), 7k. (18,500), 10k. (51,500),- 'k. (6,000); 20,000r, on 20k. (35,200), 20/14k. (2,000) 35k. not shown, (35 000); imperforato, 10lOOr. on lk. (70,700), 3k. (11,400); 2000. on:2Ck. 100). In addition the list of the 2nd. Issue has the following stamps: 'Russia, imperforate 20,000r. on 20k. (100) and Odessa (double lined trident), 10.O00r. on 10k. perforated (2,000) and Russia perforated 10.000r. on 10k. (200). Total of both issues added to 675,000. According to the official re- lease, dated May-'31 1921, the total quantity distributed to vxaious bren,;- offices, of both sets, during the life of the post was 116,534 stamps and of which only 74,144 stamps were sold. 27,345, stamps were sent to Belgrad, b"' until now the quantity sola there is still not known All stamps were sold for the currency of the iSureme' Cbnmnand i.e. the money issued by Generals eonikin & Wrangel. The rates of 10,00r. 10p4. 1. French Frank 2 silver dinars were established for the purchasers having foreign currency. Stamps .unsold in postal branches .of Russian Post, were returned to 6onstantinople and added to supplio's'there and then were sold to stamp dealers & .sriculaitors. Naturally, selling of stamps at various branches of Russian Post, 'did: not indicate in any. way,, that these stamps were used to prepay postage 'on. correspondence, 'espieialy 'in Constantindple, where 66,80% stamps were sold and where:'the principall purchasers were collectors stamp dealers and speculators, who purchased stamps to the value, of 3,842 lira3 (Turkish) and that amount did not include the stamps which were bought for Russian rubles. In all other branches stamps to. the.value of 67 li. 90 pi. S(urkish) w6re sold, while the other sales were for valueless Russian paper money amounting to tens of millions of rubles. .It is interesting to note that the "Russian -.sts stamps were distributed to the following branches.: Constantinople, Bc :: -: Gillipoli, Lemno3 (no stamps of the" 2nd. set sent there), Khrlki I ;(Oni/ 14 stamps of 2nd. set sold), Khalki II (2nd. Issue, 10,00r. 6..20,C00r,.- 1 sold), Bernadotte (Onri 24 of 2nd.. Issue eold), Thla I, Tuzia, II, Chatadja (1st. Issue 5,00r. 1, 10.O0Cr. 22, 2nd. issue.- none sold), Kanrober (hone. sold), Lann (No stamps of 2nd. issue sent),,Selimie (noneof 2nd. issue sold), Buuk-Dore (Ist. Issue 5.000r. r'10, 10,000r. -,18, 20,00r. -.4 sold, 2nd. issue not sent)' Tora'ia (1st. Issue, 5.000r. -4, 10,000r. 2, 20,0001., 5, 2nd. issue not sent)., The above figures are" very interesting and very valuable, because these stamps are often offered on covers in complete sets, and also because they are cancelled with" most varied cancellers. Quite often are also found stamps of the 2nd. issue with the cancellation of camps to which no stamps were sent or where nc stamps were sold. The 'covers include cancellations of Kanrober where not a:: single stamp was sold,' as .well qa. the camps at Page 72 , Bizerte, St. Arno, etc. where oftheao no stampes were .sold or no stamps were available. I will go further into the subject at the end of my article. No matter what the true motives of Mr. X, the 'initiator of these issues, were, the Russian Post and its branches initiate' .. definite set of rules, which were as follows:- 1 Rates were established a-Post Cards 1,660 rubles. b-Ordinary Letter 5,000 rubles. c-Registerod Letter 10,000 rubles. Due to rapid fall in the value of the ruble, by the tiae the 2nd. set appeared the postal rates were increased to - a Post card 5,000 rubles. b Ordinary letter 10,000 rubles. c Registered letter 20,000 rubles. 2 On December 21, 1920 N. A. Chebykin was appointed as a postmaster of Serbia, and who was stationed in Belgrad, as well as 3 couriers for carrying mail. Two who were established on route Belgrad - Constantinople were V. A. Gorachkovski & Col. Treskin. For route Lemnos, Gallipoli & Catarro, Sr. Leut. I. S. latino was appointed with a monthly salary of 60 rubles. Approximately 2 months later, on February. 26, 1921, Sr. Leut. Platonov while aboard the ship "O S T 0 R 0 J N I", travelling to Lemnos on -official business and having in his possession money of Russian Government & the correspondence was held up and assassinated. Meanwhile, Mr. X was travelling to Western Europe with-large supplies of these stamps. Of the 27,345 stamps delivered to C!'-bykin in Belgrad, an unx- known quantity was sent to Tkhorjevski in Paris, sale to stamp dealers and collectors. Unfortunately I have no records Tf these sales.. It is interesting to note that on April 26, 1921 from the suitcase of the head of the Russian Postal system,,who resided in a hotel in Constantinopl.', 308 liras and 80 piastres of;government .money and 1461, mostly rare, over- prints on Russian Levant (2nd. sot), with a face value of,188 liras and 10 p,. were stolen. A written legal report unwittingly wonders why a responsible government official kept money and stamps in a suitcase in his hotel room, rather than in the office of the Russian Post or in the headquarters of. Rui'?' Mission. This occurence, plus the one involving one in Crimea where a supil.: of 100r/Ik. overprints was stolen, opens a way for various conjectures. I have already mentioned the protest of the Turkish Government,,transa fitted through Allied representatives on March 4, 1921. The basis of this protest was the #433 Sevres Treaty, by which Russia, not being a momber of the League of Nations as yet, was not entitled to establish Post Offices in Turkey. A. A. Neratov, the representative of our government, in reply dated #55 Page 73 *q March 11, 1921, #851, attempted-to depict the activity of the Russian Post, as that of the internal business of the Refugee Administration. The allied administrators did not agree with this point of view and insisted that this postal system be discontinued and tho sale of stamps stopped. In their reply of March 27, 1921 they only allowed Russian Govornmont to maintain auxiliary P. 0. in Iera, which was alr in operation in May, 1920, and which I already discussed previously, T"he requests of allied representatives were adhered to and the activity of Russian Post ceased and all branches were closed at the end of May 1921, thus ending a short lived activity of this post. It remains now for me to discuss the last remaining question, heretof:-- not touched, i.e. the question of large cancellctions of Russian Post foa'l on covers and:post card, and which was tangled up a great deal by Mr. X. From a number of considerations, enumerated below, I seriously doubt that these cancellers were supplied to various postal'branches of Russian Post and used for cancelling stamps. Those doubts are based not only on the facts that letters are found with the cancellations cf the refugee ca-pm to which no shmps were sent, namely Bizerte, Antigoin, PFoti, etc, but alio to the fact- that Mr. X upon his arrival to Western Europe exhibited large quantities of these envelopes, which he prepared before hand, to show and to prove to-those cnterosted that those stamps actually were used for corres- pondence, It is also known that Mr. X brought with him a great assortment of cancellers of various cities and camps, and. which he widely used, to pr'c- pare letters and post cards and also to cancel stamps. It is hard to realize, that.thoso cancellors were.prepared in duplicate, and that Mr. X was able to take duplicates with him, and leaving the origLn- als in post offices of cities and camps. Strangely, not one of the documents or financial reports of Russian .Post of that time, mentions any payments for cancellers, nor does it mention their distribution to various camps. A great deal of doubt is also brought up by very important details which until pow: have either .baen minir.zed or nc+ l-ticod at all: on all of thes3 cancellations, the words Russian Post and the name of the local ,'ly is in Russian characters of old orthography, while the month is indicated by use of Latin (French) characters, besides which the date cancellation is actually made by a separate cancellr,, which is applied additional, in th middle of the main canceller. This, French indication of months, has no logical justification, since, the Russian Post was strictly a Russian affair and the letters never had an occasionn to be delivered to foreign post office. It is perfectly cleor, that those cancollers with date indicator, had the datos assembled from rubber .numorals and Latih letters, which were easily obtainable at any large stationery stores It is unlikely, that each postal branch was. supplied not only with a large canceller, but also with a box containing an assortment of letters and numerals, and also that all of the clerks receiving and sending correspondence were familiar with nomen- clature of months in French. Page 74 #55 0 Besides that, I personally saw several letters, addressed to Russian refugees in Constantinople and other camps, which were deloverod in the name of "Sanitary-Refugee Branch of the Russian Army in Constantinople", besides that all of the correspondence bore a violet franking of this Com- mission. One letter was from Roumanic, prepaid with Roumanian stamps; two others from Belgrad had Serbian stamps and were addressed to and received by Mr. X, notwithstanding the fact that he was the organizer of this post% that there was a branch of this post in Bolgrad, and that he was the organ- izer of this post in Constantinople. Finally the 4th. letter was sent fro: Gallipoli to Constantinople, prepaid wit4 the stamps of "Russian Army Post ' and cancelled with markings of Gallipoli, Constantinople and violet marking of "Sanitary-Refugee Committee". Therefore, parallel with notorious "Russian Post" existed other, fully official office whose business was to send and receive correspondence, and occasional as we see above, in certa. instances, letters with stamps and franks of the Russian Post, It would be very interesting, if some of our readers who at that time lived in Constantinople, would advise us of all they know about the functlori of this post. I have an official declaration of the Principal Prosecutor of the Russian Army and the Fleet, #998, dated March 24, 1921, sent from aboard the ship "Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovioh" to the head of Financ.ial Section, A. I. Piltz, with a "confidential" staten -t, in which is discus-ae a p.per received by Supreme Commander, whose cor- is describe abnormalities pf postal organization and of vague status, from juridicial points of view, of the Russian Post in Constantinople. The clearing up of this question, was turned over to Col. Ukraintsev, but in my papers 1 have no clues what co ever as to whether anything was cleared up, or what the final outcome of tLi3 business was. I have no intention of placing a brand on all letters bearing stamps of 1st. and 2nd. issues and the cancellations of the Russian Army Post as being absolute .products of Mr. X. Undoubtedly, a certain percentage of these letters originated with refugees and was addressed to their refugees, and was accept- ed and serviced by Russian Post, but the question is how to separate these letters, from hundreds of others, prepared by Mr. X either before leaving for his Wost.European trip or during the years following. To answer thls question is Very difficult, but on the other hand we can mention a few baeic facts, which perhaps may help. Ist. of all we must remember that none :of the branches received any of the rare stbmps having an issue of 25 to 1,0/ copies, since these wore kept for sale to collectors. Then, we must di;- regard material addressed to Mr. X, couriers and representatives of the Russian Post. For example, I will cite a letter to the courier of Russian Post, via Constantinople-Belgrad route, addressed c/o Union of Russian Engineers, Belgrad, with cancellation of "Russian Post Constantinople December 24, 1920".. It is perfectly clear thht this letter can not be ta:c,-, seriously .as a'good example of usage. We must also disregard cancelled letters from camps, where no postal branches existed, and in all other inci" - cos we must be guided by, the appearance of the letter, in other words whhe- ..'-', it was tied upin any way with the name of Mr. X and his extremely clever machinations, with fully detailed information, whf.:'h was given out with the purpose of mixing up the philatelists and stamp' I1rs. One must not fo:I't that until now, all of the published information _L all of the catalogues & '55 Page 75 ,spacial articles on the issues of Wirangel Post, originated from the fcrtlle mind of MrI X, and that it was widely circulated everywhere and beleivod, because Mr. X was the originator and the highest official of the P 0 S To E DI TOR I A L N O T E' The views presented in this article are solely those .of the author .,, Rosselevitch, and the Editors of Rossica disclaim any responsibility for any and all statements included in this article. Documents, lists, etc. which are described by the author, were presented at the regular meeting of Rossida in Spring of 1958 in New York. To reproduce all of the .material in the journal is difficult, because of its volume. Those who are particularly interested in the subject may examine these documents at the meeting of Rossica in November 1958 or can get in direct communication with the author. The Editorial board underlines i': words of the author ji' not all stamps .of Wrangel are counterfeit and th .- speaks of the active' of one -erson only.and that he..d.oes not reproach ,lase who were fooled by h..,r, his o'ly ideas' are to bring to the attention of doalerscollectors and exports, the ffact that they must be very caroful, since this issue was touched by the improper activities of iMr X. .ooooooooooooooo ' -.066OOOO000000000 N 0,T ES R 0 M C 0 LLE C T ORS "A. -Rosselovitch Eesti Post It is indeed a controversial issue. Fom information available we know they were issued with speculative purposejeither by a stamp dealer, or a private individual in colusion with the Postal Administration in Talinn (Revel), Estonia, or with a help of postal clerk who allowed a certain quantity of letters to go through -the mails. All.'of these covers have either a fictitious address or no address at all, and are of pr'ely philatelic character. Exact quantitities of stamps issued are not known and the overprints vwre made by a rubber handstamp. The series included 18 to 19 values, from 1 kop, to 10 rubles, of which 1, 10/7, 35 kop. and 10 rubles perforated and 2 ko->;,, 1, 3.50 anid 5 ruble values are rare. A great number of counterfeits, froii wry ,poor to dangerously good exist, off and on cover, BecaUse of the difficaL ,; of expertising those handstamped overprints, dnd because of this issue beel n more of speculative phantasti.. nature, we should only consider those pieces that: -hae .the, guarantee markings of such iell kno.-r firms as Einchental & Berzin. As far we 1know the stamps of this issue have other than abo3a guarantee' markings are all feakos. ooo000oooooooooo0000000 Aplroval Circuits Circulating packets, with stamps, on approval, are avail- able for members of Rossica, residing in United Sttes.. Stamps sell from 25% to 40% of Scottts Catalogue. Stamps catalogued from 2 to 6 cents sell for 2 cents each. Each participant is obliged to pay only the postage and insurance to the next member, without obligation to purchase. Those intore-tr- ed, please contact the Secretary of the Russian speaking section A. N. Lavio., 252 Sherman St., Passaic, New Jersey. Aigo 76 5 A. Rosselevitch 11, and 11 norforations. Neither in Tiflis, nor in any other city, were Russian stamps perf- orated 11, and 11i issued officinUly. MA of those were reparod either by private individuals, or in some cases by postal clerks, on their own initia- tive, for the purpose of easier sopration of imperforato stamps. Various types of perforations from 9 to l- gauge are known to exist, as well as sawing machine perforations and others. Besides that, coUnterfeit porfo- ations, prepared abroad are known to exist. Theo -tampe are interesting only when found on covers, otherwise it is nevc: -Jsible to establish whoe thor we are dealing with a counterfeit or a.genuirne item. (See Page 60). light green background. "Stamps of 1 ruble of 1909-23, with light green background, instead of light brown, is neither a trial, error or a variety, although it is list'o in Romekols catalogue. Same variety of 1 ruble on vertically laid paper -x f 1902-04 issue, which is occasionally found with light green background, and sometimes with one in black, together with the ones mentioned above are chemical changelings of unknown source." (See Page 59). 10 ruble of 1909-23 with blue background. This stamp is written up in detail in Rossica #28 (1937). (Soo Paee _( ). 00000000000000000000 o - ooooo0000000ooooooo00000000000000oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo000000 oooooooo O o o 1 am interested in obtaining complete 1922, 1923, 1930 and later o o years of Soviet Philatolist and Soviet Collector. g o o o E. MarcoWitch o o o o6oooooooooooooooooooooooocoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 00 oc OOOOOOOOCOOOOOC00C OOOOoCOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOC OOOOCC O OOOCOO OOOcOCO00CO 0 0 o I wish to sell my albums of the RussE .mpiroe and Soviet u'-b.:. o o ol94., mute cancellations, pro-philotolic letters, Russian Offices in 0 0 o oTurkoy, China and Crete, Armeniap Georgia, Ukraine, etc. 6 albums o o oPrice Franks Swiss 8,000. Floase write to me for details. o o o oQreg orv I. Rabinovitch Som r.cherstr. 21 Zurich Switzerland c 00 00 00000000Co0000000oo 000000000CC0000000000000ooC0000oooocc0cocoo0ooooooo-,C #55 Pago S EDITORIAL COMMENTS ON "PHANTASIES" BY E. MARCOVITCH The editors warmly welcome the efforts of E. Marcovitch, whose idea is to clean up Russian Philatoly of all the bogus mr rial, errors in the catalogues and errors of researchers, against wP'c.r many collectors have protested from time to time. We recommend to ou: oaders and friends to take into account these explanations, to which in future will be added new information, because as this work goes ahead further study will be made of these little known issues. At the same time, the editorial board would like to add to the work of the esteemed author the following: Phantasies in Russian Philately actually start with 14 kopek, without thunderbolts, diagonaly cut in half and overprinted 7 in red on each half ( Scott's No. 38L ). The author of this phantasy was one of the well known, older Russian philatelists, who prepared several of these H A L VE S and with help of one postal clerk mailed a number of prepared covers, I think, mostly to himself. This occurod in March 1883 in Tiflis, and at the present time only a few examples of this phantasy are known to exist. We must also mention phantastic variations in color of the paper of the Charity Issue of World War I, namely of the 3k. plus 1k. of 1915 on white paper. The better known phantasy is the one on yellow (orange) paper, prepa.-od in Russia, and until this time remaining a puzzle to many. Lesser known phantasy of the same stanp is the 3 kop. variety on grayish blue prier, i.e, on the paper of 10 kop. of the same issue; this variety was produced in Paris, comparatively recently, by the same Mr. X, who is freely discussed in the article by Mr. A. M. Rosselevitch entitled 0 VE R PR I N T S 0 F WR N GE L P 0 ST (See Pages 5-12 & 71-76). For a long time this variety was unnoticed, and had very limited circu -tion as compared with the one on orange paper. The purpose of both of the -jve stamps was to produce non existent varieties, purportedly found in the archivess of Ministry of Posts and Telegraph during the revolution. Certain information also exist, that 1921 issue of Armenia, produced by overprinting the R U B L E values of the Arms Type of Russia are also Phantasies. The overprint consists of a five pointed star and a new value in thousands of rubles, all inside of a vertical rectangular frame. Un- fortunately the editors, as yet do not have complete data, to give their opinion on this issue. page 78 - |
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