The stamps issued and used during the time of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1922 – 1936) are interesting because the cancels of the first republic saw further uses. Also, the bolshevists did not allow private dealers or other persons to create and deal with philatelic material. They did it centrally through governmental institutions. There was no Serebrakian or Melik Pasha possible. Still I have found some stamps with seemingly CTO impressions, gum and dealer markings.
The idea is to collect stamps with republic cancels for comparison use, since there almost no forgeries of cancels during this time. Only two drawbacks: clear impressions of provincial cancels are rare (!) and forgeries of those cancels appeared on the market in the last years. I bought some from dealers in Armenia though delcampe und ebay.
While sorting through my collection I stumbled over these cancellations (see image). If you can read or identify any of them, please leave a comment.
Thanks in advance and happy hunting.
PS: Feel free to post images of your cancel fragments!
1. Could be ELISAVETPOL
2 Distinctive long-tailed serial “a” suggests you should check for KARAKLIS ERIVAN
3 Could be a TBILISI cancel
4. SUKHUM
5 Somewhere in EL[ISAB]vetpol Guberniya
6 Georgian!
When do you announce the winners : ) ?
Afterthought: sometimes these stamps were used in multiples (I saw a block of eight on cover the other day) and copies with gum MAY be from blocks which were not completely stuck to the envelope. If there is CTO material, I think it is very rare.
Pity we now have forgeries of cancels on these stamps, but genuine ones must still outnumber fakes by 90 to 10 or even 99 to 1
+1 on #4 being Sukhumi Georgia
#1 could be Stavropol.
Second thoughts on #2:
The long tailed “a” is also found on a SUKHUM cancel and at teh bottom of thestamp you can see a Cyrillic “S” as the first letter of the place name, so more likely SUKHUM than KARAKLIS
Thanks guys.
#1 There is a “POL”, which could indeed be Elisavetpol. Is Stavropol part of the TSFSR? I think not. Of course it could be a receiving cancel.
#2 Suchumi (a). On the second ring C Y X Y is readable.
#3 I have seen this cancel marking character on other TIFLIS cancels too, which suggests its probably a TIFLIS cancellation.
#4 Suchumi (s) It is quite easy readable. I don’t understand now, why I could not identify it myself 😉
#5 “UCAB.” (ISAV.) is readable and since its the end of the text, it stands for the Gubernia (region). Still cant find a cancel in Tchilinghirian with this ending and this cancel mark character…
#6 I agree. Most likely Georgian.
Again thanks for the input. The prize is the fun identifying the cancels (at least that is what works for me 😉
Stavropol is definitely not in the TSFSR… roughly 300km from the northern border of Georgia. That was a bad guess 🙂
#5 Possibly SHUSHA (Ashford Type 11, in use at this time, though his illustration of the serial letter is a bit different
# 1 I am pretty sure this is ELISAVETPOL – Ashford Type 9 with distinctive tall letters
More please 🙂