Help With Finnish Stamps Pls

OK, thank you. My Facit is relatively old (2002) and I never bothered to actually go measure the perforation. I will pencil in a notation. Thanks again!

Good question, Kim.

Shortly put, varieties of all sorts... As I did not afford to buy them from dealers (I was a student back then), I opted to go through tons of junk & kiloware. And it paid off pretty well; and I got plenty of philatelic education/practise along the way ;)

For example type-1901 stamps have plenty of shifted/misplaced/inverted/doubled etc prints. Below is a quite common slightly misplaced surface print:



For watermarks, type 1917 is a goldmine. But other types, even commemoratives up to late 1950s do have margin watermarks. Below few samples from my collection:



Then there's cancels/postmarks, plate flaws etc. that can be of interest. Below is a "double error" - plate flaw & partially inverted date on cancel (surprisingly common "error" on Russian era Finnish stamps):


And of course there are color varieties, perf varieties & freaks of all sorts. Some of these are somewhat common/easy-to-find; others not so. And additionally there are a couple of (postal) forgeries too.

Facit & Finnish specialized catalogs do give a pretty good general overview of what's available, but I started off by first reading the handbooks published by Finnish Philatelic Federation (3 or 4 volumes covering types 1875,1889,1901/1915 & 1917), and then dig into what I had.

The end result? After a hot & tedious summer filled with soaking, sorting, perf measuring & watermark checking, I had build up 150 album pages of "interesting material". And I learned that catalog (and the handbook) should not be treated as the bible; they are incomplete and can contain misleading/false information too. But that's what philately is about - digging after the truth.

Few years later I gave up on specializing to Finland; and converted back to worldwide collecting. The reason? In order to fully proceed to exhibitive/competitive philately, I should have acquired covers etc. stuff that was not in my interests / budget.

That's facinating, scb! Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. 150 album pages seems a vast amount of 'interesting material.' It was obviously a very productive summer for you!

If you have time to go into it, I'd love to know more about Finnish watermarks.

I've only started to look at the watermarks, and I've already found very strange looking posthorns and swastikas, but as yet I have not idea what to make of them.

I've also noticed some interesting watermarks on the 1941 Ryti and Mannerheim issues, but I've got no idea what the symbol represents.

Also, can you please explain what 'margin watermarks' are? I don't think I've heard the term before.

Likely You've landed with different watermark positions & inverted watermarks. Some of these are common, some are worth major $$$. You really should get a copy of Facit or some specialized Finnish stamp catalog for these ;)




That's the heraldic rosette... In addition of normal and inverted watermarks, there are two types of this. In type I the rosettes are 6mm apart from each other, in type II they are 11mm apart. Once again, some of these are worth 3-4 figures.




Each stamp sheet has a watermark "SUOMEN LEIMAKONTTORI / FINLANDS STÄMPELKONTOR' (Finnish/Swedish for Stamp Office of Finland) in opposite ends. Sometimes a part of this watermarks ends up on stamp.

Great info, scb! You are tempting me to dig out some Finland and take a look.

scb, thanks so much for the info!

BTW what do you use to view watermarks?

What about rare cancels? There must be certain plces whose cancels are highly sought after.

This information is, I assume, not to be found in catalogues.

For most Finnish stamps, you can see the watermarks easily with bare eyes.

For swastika watermarks place the stamp on black background and it will usually become visible pretty well. If you can't make it out, drop a few drops of benzine or watermark fluid (or even water), and presto.

The other watermarks are much more easier, and are usually fully viewable "as is". If you have problems, place the stamp on black background, or view it against a light source.




There's a tri-lingual (Finnish-Swedish-English) Handbook of Finnish postmarks (there are multiple editions of this). It simply features a list of all known cancels, usage era, and rarity rating. No prices/values are listed as it would be pretty impossible mission.

Norma catalog has a simplified (10-page) price listing for postmarks; but the prices apply on for full piece items (letters, postal stationary etc, not single stamps). Facit does have a simplified listing for classic era postmarks/cancellations too.

As a generalization, anything that's SOTN/Socket-on-the-nose is valued pretty well (3-50x regular item catalog value). Basically it's all about supply and demand.

Can you give us the exact title of this handbook and who publishes it? Thank you!

scb, this is my freakiest Finnish stamp. It's not on normal stamp paper, but some kind of thick, rough paper, paper that seems to have caused the perforating machine no small amount of difficulty:





Do you happen to know if this is a listed variety?

If not, do you think stamps like this are common enough?

It's called "Suomen Postileimojen käsikirja", published by Suomen Filatelistiliitto / Finlandia 88 (both are aliases for Finnish Philatelic Federation). It is a series of handbooks that has been going on since 1970s:

Suomen postileimojen käsikirja II - Kaksirengasleimat / Two ring postmarks.
Suomen postileimojen käsikirja III - Finland-leimat / Finland cancellations
Suomen postileimojen käsikirja IV - Venäläisleimat / Russian type cancellations
Suomen postileimojen käsikirja VIII - Viestilliset / Slogan cancels

I've seen other parts too, but can't recall their official names. I fear most of these are sold out, but used copies are somewhat common. In Finland, these are somewhat easily accessible through public library network (so there's no actual need to own them).

Another highly recommendable handbook, sort of like "master compilation" is:

Suomen postitoimipaikat 1638-1985 / Postoffices in Finland 1638-1985 (also by Finlandia 88)






That's normal for civil war of 1918 (Wasa-type) issues... These can have highly varying paper from very thin to almost thick cardboard like pulp. All sorts of perforations freaks are very common in this stamp series.

Thanks for the titles, Keijo!

k

'thick cardboard like pulp' it is!

Thanks for the info, scb.

For those interested in the heraldic rose watermark that appears on the 1941 President Ryti/General Mannerheim issues, this is what it looks like:



It usually appears tilting to the right (i.e., the topmost petal is pointing right), but it can appear pointing left, as in these two examples:



I don't think this particular watermark was used on any other issues.

Nope... But you can find on the Ryti & Mannerheim stamp overprinted "ITÄ- / KARJALA / Sot.hallinto" for Eastern Karelia.