Stamps Of Armenia

Trevor wrote a very interesting and in depth article regarding the so called First Star Overprint on his blog. This overprint is really rare (much rarer then the Second Star Overprint) and not much is known about the historical background. Ceresa, who spent more then 40 years collecting and researching Armenien stamps, did not see much of these stamps and in his books he reprinted the passages from Tchilinghirian/Ashford.

As you can see, this overprint is rather crude and smudged. It easy to see how the catalog publisher decided that this stamp – which was almost never seen, and where no letters exist – is just a forgery. It is interesting to learn, that those overprints are probably much more legit than the Second Star Overprint, which looks much cleaner and better and thus became more present in the catalogs.

So if you are interested head over to his blog and read for yourself!

Trevor Pateman about Armenian First Star Overprints 

Why do I consider this overprint one of the most difficult ones? The overprint alone has very few characteristics.

Just doing a large batch of Opinions. Its nice to see so much material at one place. Checking a single overprint with just the literature is a nearly impossible task. Once you have a collection with comparison items it gets easier. Useful are cancelled items where you can more easy get a feeling if the item is genuine. Also have a look at the backside of the stamp. If there are signatures you have even more details. Some signatures are a hint that the stamp and the overprint are genuine, some are a hint, the item is fake (e.g. the notorious “UZ”), some are no help whatsoever (“AG”). Now that you have items where you are sure the overprint is genuine and lot of items to check, make high resolution scans. I use 2400 dpi with is quite much and you need a scanner, that was not the cheapest one at the market…

Here are the details of “different” overprints of the “3”. What do you think: are all the same?

Also this month: the 350th Köhler auction. Nice covers – probably ex Serebrakian and a collection – as usual a wild mix of genuine and forged material. Still when scanning the first few pages it seems like there is more genuine material then in the Raritan collection. But thet is just my first impression, I did not evaluate either one seriously.

Browse the armenian items!

Again new material! Several new lots with Armenian stamps – mostly momograms – are listet. Nice items overall, just the collections contain many forgeries. While the first page looks almost good, on the following pages the genuine overprints are scarce… As always its buyers job to scan the items and calculate the value. I guess the auction house uses some rule of thumb going from the count of the containing stamps in order to produce a kind of catalog value. When you imaging doing this for business you have to limit the effort you put into a lot in contrast to the money you can earn. Makes no sense to spent several days when the gain is 200 bucks. So I guess its sometimes too much they charge and sometimes you can buy cheap. But still, I wonder if you not end up spending too much money when buying collections most of the time. Another thing that comes to mind when browsing the collection pages: there are a lot of empty cases. I cant help to think that probably someone took out the more interesting items before offering the collection.

So enjoy the new material, but be sure to check what you are bidding on is worth your money 🙂

The current auction at Raritan again features several Armenia lots. My impression while scanning: interesting items, some quite nice and not often to see, but also at least two lots where I consider the overprints/cancels as fake (the dangerous forgery as Tchilinghirian would call it) and fishy looking respectively. The collection, as so often, is a mix of obviously fake overprints and also nice (and genuine) looking ones.

No cover this time…

I did some research regarding the Vartashen cancel.

This is what I found in the Ashford “Russian stamps used in Transcaucasia”:

VARTASHEN (Village) (Post Telegraph sub-office)

North of the railway line, Vartashen was an isolated village in the foothills of the Caucasian mountains, about 25 versts to the south east of Nukha. The P.O. was opened after 1893. Apart from a poor example of a cancellation on a stamp of Soviet Azerbaijan, no sightings can be reported. E.S.Voikhansky (sic) lists both an “a” and a “b” double circle script letter datestamps for Vartashen from the Azerbaijan period. Neither of thene, however, can be illustrated.

So I obviously got an impression of the double circle script letter “b” datestamp. Nukha is nowadays Shaki (or Sheki). I could not find a clear information about the village or town of Vartashen on the internet. Most likely it is a village near Oguz called Vartashenkyshlak. Oguz has a 2008 population of about 6.800 inhabitants. The whole area was very remote and sparsely inhabited. The cancel is probably quite rare and we can illustrate it now 🙂

The cancels are from Azerbaijan, but still interesting area not far from Armenia. Some areas changed jurisdiction.

A)

“…OGRAD” and long tailed serial “a”.

B)

“…SHIRI BAK.” and I think there is a “G.” Which stands for “gorod” which means town.

C)

Baku?

D)

“SALNI BAK. G.” A part of Baku town?

E)

“BALACHA…”?

F)

?

G)

“VARTASHEN” which is nowadays the Oghuz rayon.

H)

“PETROPAVLO…” ?

Now on to the star overprints with cancellations.

A)

Starting with “A” On the left fragment is “LIS” – perhaps Elisavetpol Gubernia or Tiflis? Long tailed serial “a” – I’d say.

B)

“AG?” “ELISAV.” Some town in the Elisavetpol gubernia. And long tailed serial “a” here too.

C)

Again starting with an “A” and ending with “BUL”

D)

Beats me…

Two more fragments.

A)

“ERIVAN. 3” can clearly be read. There is some word before. Also, could not find the specific cancel serial letter in Zakiyan.

B)

A difficult one. Perhaps an “B” at the beginning. The cancel serial letter is not clear.

Suggestions, please 🙂