Russian Postmarks - Rossica Collection

As a continuation of sorting a massive collection purchased from an old Rossica Society member, this is one of the books of postmarks. Any help identifying, pricing, and history would be great. I do not know the value but I do know he had been trading very high priced classical stamps and errors to acquire some of these and some of the covers so hopefully there is some monetary value here. At some point I will be selling most of this off as a means to purchase the countries I collect but not until I find the right type of buyer who can appreciate the collection as the previous owner did. It would be nice not to break up chunks like this if possible.

Anyway, the pictures can be found at this link and will be updated quite frequently.

http://s1141.beta.photobucket.com/u...%20Postmarks

OK I just took pics of everything in the one book, even some that are kind of standing apart from everything else, unlabelled, and even a few unused ones. Not sure why they are all in the same book.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Nice collection, stamps101! It appears to have been a true labor of love of the previous owner.

An impressive effort to identify the postmarks, although their arrangement in the stockpages appears rather random. A possible way to classify them, if we are talking about a large enough collection, would be by governorate (guberniya) / oblast of origin of the postmark.

Below is a list of the administrative divisions of the Russian Empire (provided by Kiryushkin and Robinson in their book "Russian Postmarks"):





In the days to come I will try to offer some more info, particularly on some of the unidentified cancels in your scans.

Nice collection but to highly specialisted for 99.999% of readers here .Just because the post mark has been translated and a name of a city is translated to English .The rarity of the postmark would be know to a few Russian collectors who study such things .Then if you list them on E-BAY ,you will need to find two specialist to fight over them,most likely you may find a buyer who will take a few at the minium bid.A very hard sell if you don't know what your selling .

Thank you both for the feedback. I have thought it best to likely sell the majority of it as one piece especially to preserve the work done. I am curious as to if there are any postmarks in there that are of any value by themselves as a valuation of the whole collection will likely be difficult.

The previous owner was definitely quite the enthusiast!

just a note about the lot ------there are a few that you would need to do some research on ,like the ZELZAVA LIFYLAND stamp ,the google search tells me thats a early LATVIA cancel and would have collectors who collect that country interested in it .The money is made after the reseach is done and identified correctly ,if you sell it as a group without the research then its just canceled early Russian stamps for what ? maybe $20.00 or $40.00 .....research and correct I.D. could be a lot more .

I would start by studying the journals of the Rossica Society available free on line

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00020235/00038/allvolumes

Nice stuff and what a big homework assignment. Russia covers and large pcs if listed properly seem to be doing quite well but as floortrader mentioned you need to put in the effort to see the results. Another likely possibility is shipping these items back to "mother Russia" which can be a hassle with the postal system. I'm affraid if not broken up and listed seperatly you will not get nearly what you can if done seperatly with good ID. I think we have all seen where a past collector has gone overboard to suit their own requirements only to have all the hours and work for not on the selling end. If you do list it in 1 shot let us know.

Some first comments - I will go by the number of the scan in your Photobucket album.

Scan 1: Rather unusual at first glance. An Offices in China overprinted stamp with a Helsinki postmark. Either a forged overprint or the stamp was cancelled upon arrival in Helsinki.

Scan 3: on 7k Romanoff - postmark of Tsaritsinsk Metallurgical Zavod (=factory). The word zavod or the abbreviation zav. in a postmark indicate a postal establishment located on the grounds of a factory or adjacent to it.

on 1k Arms - postmark of Tsaritsino. There existed post-offices with that name in both Moskovskaya and Kovenskaya guberniyas. (Notice: this is not Tsaritsin, future Stalingrad - Volgograd).

Scans 5-8:



Most of the stamps here are cancelled by the so-called mute cancellations. During World War I many non-military post offices which handled military mail used a large variety of such mute cancellations for security reasons, i.e to avoid detection of the location of particular military units. These cancellations are encountered in a large variety of shapes and sizes, of which the concentric rings type is a rather common one. Period of use: mostly 1914-1915.

In depth as usual! Thanks :)

Scan 10:



on 18k: oval cancellation of Pskov vokzal (=train station). In 1903 double-oval postmarks were introduced for railway station post offices, giving the place-name above and the word VOKZAL or the abbreviation VOKZ. below. Below is a sketch of the postmark of Pskov vokzal used during the imperial period:



During the early Soviet period some station post-offices continued to use oval cancellers, either the old imperial ones or newly manufactured ones. The one on your stamp is a new one: notice the absence of the "hard sign" at the end of both the place-name and the word vokzal, abolished by the spelling reform of 1918.

on 10k: Well, every rule has its exceptions! Some station post-offices (or offices close to stations) used the word "vokzal" in their designation, BUT were circular in shape. A characteristic example is your postmark from Kiev-vokzal. The same applies to the postmarks on the 3k Arms and the 14k Esperanto stamps in scan 12: this time the place of origin is Kharkov vokzal.

Scan 15:



All stamps are cancelled by the postmark of St.Shabalino / Sever.Zh.D (=Station Shabalino / Northern Railways). These circular single-line date postmarks (with the place-name above and the railway name below) were also introduced in 1903 for semi-postal railway station offices. The postmark of Shabalino is recorded by Kiryushkin & Robinson (No 1346.1) as being used between the end of 1909 and the beginning of 1911, so the 1908 (?) use on your lower 2 stamps appears to predate this.

Scan 18:



The three 1923 Agricultural Exhibition stamps at bottom are cancelled with one of the special postmarks used on the Exhibition grounds between August and October 1923. Notice the designation VYSTAVKA (=exhibition) at the bottom part of the postmark.

The 1k "large head" Soviet definitive has a partial circular date cancel from Moscow October Vokzal.

The overprints on Airmail stamps are cancelled with a Moscow franking cachet bearing the place-name on top and the designation "SBOR VZYSKAN" (=fee charged) on bottom. This was a special type of postal marking issued by the government to some organizations for franking their sendings without affixing stamps or without payment in cash. Occasionally one finds stamps cancelled with these cachets, but, apparently, this was a violation of the postal regulations.

Scan 22:



The upper 3 stamps have so-called "pre-adhesive" postmarks. See a brief discussion about these in the SCF thread with the title "Russia 1878 overprint". Despite their name, these postmarks were used after 1877 for cancelling stamps as well. From your scan it is difficult to make out the place-name of these cancellations.

The 7k stamp at bottom is cancelled at a location in Varshavskaya guberniya, Russian Poland.

Great info Vasia- This site is better than a library!

Vasia has essentially single-handedly made me take interest in Greece and Russia. I even bought both Hellas books recently for my Hermes collection.

Thanks again vasia...very informative!

Regarding the cancellations already identified by the previous owner, I think that a sound piece of advice has already been given (especially if you intend to sell them): try to group them together by guberniya (using the K&R list) and by wider area (for example, Russian Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Siberia, Caucasus, etc).

I will go through your scans and point out the cancellations that, in my opinion, stand out among the others. To avoid loading up too many images here, I have grouped together the cancellations I will be discussing below:

Scans 28 to 41:



(scan 28) 1R Arms - cancellation of Naryn, Semirechenskaya oblast, Turkestan (present-day Kyrgyzstan).

(scan 30) 7R Arms - cancellation of Kara-Tygay, Tyrgayskaya oblast, in present-day Kazakhstan.

(scan 32) 10R Arms - cancellation of Zeya, Amur oblast in eastern Siberia.

(scan 33) 1R Arms strip of 5 - cancellation of Arkhangelsk International Parcel Otd (=sub-office). December 1917 use.

(scan 37) 7k Romanoff strip of 3 - cancellation of ST.NOVKI / MOSCOW-KURSK ZH.D (station Novki / Moscow-Kursk Railway). This cancellation is listed, but not illustrated by K&R. Notice a late use of a cross-date canceller.

(scan 37) 1R Arms pair - cancellation of Izhevskiy Zavod (=factory), Vyatka. This is probably a postal facility on the grounds of the Izhevsk Machine Building Plant (maker, among other things, of the Kalashnikov rifles).

(scan 41) 5k Arms - cancellation of ST.KRILOVSKAYA, Kuban, Northern Caucasus. Listed, but not illustrated by K&R.

Scans 43-45:



(scan 43) 10k Arms strip of 3 - cancellation of Votkinskiy zavod (=factory), Vyatka.

(scan 44) 4k Arms imperf with Ukraine trident overprint - oval cancellation of Kazatin/Vokz. (train station). Late use in 1918 in "independent" Ukraine: Kiryushkin & Robinson record this postmark used only up to 1916.

(scan 45) 2k Arms - cancellation of Nadezhdinskiy zav. (zavod=factory), Perm.

(scan 45) 3k Arms - cancellation of Chuguevskoe / Vol.Pr., Primorskaya oblast in east Siberia. The "Vol.Pr" notation at the lower part of the postmark is an abbreviation for "Volostnoe Pravlenie", i.e post-office of rural council.