Bill Stoten - 10/30/2005 at 08:01
First of all I'd like to thank Gary and jeff for opening this Forum. I guess there are many UA collectors out there who see very few items on this
subject. Perhaps most of the work has been done by T&S and, in the 50 years following, by honoured tomes like Rossica and other Journals. The UA
chronicles published in the BJRP allowed news to be feed through to publication but in the last 10 or so years, new discoveries seem to have few
venues for debate.
The scope of Used Abroad is wide and not only covers the well trodden China, Levant and Central Asian area as well documented in the T&S
handbooks, but also could include WW1 and WW2 occupations in a different sense than just military. Post WW2 occupations are also a potential source of
discovery and perhaps we can encourage contributions.
Just to court controversy, I'd like to present a cover which is the closest thing to a Used Abroad item without actually being one! (unless you know
better............ ).
This is a registered cover sent 17.2.1917 from Kyakhta to Copenhagen censored at Irkutsk and Petrograd. Nicely franked with 20 k. (7 x 1k. + 2k. +
3k. +7k.) and cancelled with an early fraction date with a TROITSKOSAVSK reg. label.
You'll find in T&S that early Kyakhta marks are ascribed to Mongolian Merchants forwarding mail from there until Troitskosavsk was establishec
later.
So the questions ...
why did the Kyakhta letter get a Troiskosavsk reg. label?
Did Kyakhta have none?
Does the letter still suggest it arrived from inside the Mongolian border?
Can a wise Siberian collector put a UA collector straight?
Front
Bill Stoten - 10/30/2005 at 08:03
back or front if you like addresses:
Bill Stoten - 10/30/2005 at 08:04
and a close-up
Gary - 10/31/2005 at 17:57
Rossica members and others. We have a golden opportunity to discuss this topic with a person who knows the subject. Please do not be silent.
Thanks
howard - 11/1/2005 at 15:08
Kiakhta is a suburb of Troitskosavsk, a few versts away and on the Russian side of the Chinese (or Mongolian) border. Covers from Kiakhta are not used
abroad. The post office here opened in the late eighteenth century, and in 1881 transferred to Troitskosavsk, leaving just a telegraph office in
Kiakhta. This cover was postmarked at the telegraph office, which should have applied a registration label reading Kiakhta Tel. Kont. Since it did
not, the Troitskosavsk post office applied one.
Bill Stoten - 11/1/2005 at 16:32
Thanks Howard!!!!
To be honest (Shame on me too.............) I never even noticed that the Kyakhta mark was a Telegraph Office .... boy do I feel dumb!!!
So that's good news and bad news for me!
The bad news is it looks like a plain old Siberian cover .... but good news in that it can join my Telegraph Offices collection.
I would never have expected one from Kyakhta!!!!!!!
There's one big BUT here !!!
Fortunately for me I can see the item close up... and the Troitskosavsk label is struck by the Kyakhta mark, just on the edge... so does that mean
that the Kyakhta Office was supplied with the Troits. label??
howard - 11/1/2005 at 20:39
Bill,
I was wondering about that also. I would agree that the Kiakhta office was supplied with the Troitskosavsk labels.
Bill Stoten - 11/5/2005 at 04:48
I wonder if there are any other examples of this borrowing of registration labels - throughout the empire?
A Bogus Overprint and Why ?
Bill Stoten - 11/13/2005 at 05:09
Now here's a strange one.... A 10k arms (horizontally laid for the stampers!) with a letterpress printed 'PIASTER' overprint. It looks like a Moscow
cancel and probably never saw the lands to the east of the Bosphorus!!! But why? Was it just one of those philatelic fancies, but a well set
letterpress suggests more than one was printed. Does anyone have a similar example or any information on it.... ?
Gary - 11/13/2005 at 09:03
It is definitely not a Moscow postmark.
Bill Stoten - 11/13/2005 at 12:13
Agreed Gary ..... On reflection the MO... in the left part of the cancel maybe a route MO... (perhaps Mogilev .... to somewhere..) as it seems that
towns beginning with Rudnya ... are a white Russian thing as in .... Place.... Oh well even stranger with the Piaster overprint.... Is this a
Byelorussian fore runner ... maybe it is used abroad then
??