USSR Stamp (C. 1950) 2 Varieties

I have only two examples of this issue, and, oddly enough, they are different.



The (Polish?) flag on the right stamp has greyish areas representing the folds on the flag, brown spearheads on the flagtaffs and no yellow:



The flag on the left stamp has no greyish areas, yellow spearheads and yellow lines.

Next, the Albanian flag on the right stamp has a brown spearhead and a doubled Albanian emblem:



The left stamp has a yellow spearhead and a single impression of the Albanian emblem:

Last (although there may be other differences). what I think is the Yugoslavian flag on the left stamp has green and yellow areas:



On the right stamp, however, the same flag has no green or yellow, but there is a greyish yellow present to represent folding which is absent from the flag on the left stamp:



Can anyone else find significant differences on their copies of the stamp?

Neat.

I notice that on the left stamp, all of the red printed is shifted downwards and to the left side a bit.

Just that would throw off small details.

The yellow I am not sure what is going on.

Also called colour misregistration.

I gave up trying to work it out myself!

There were 2 different printings of this set (Scott 1488-1490), one in 1950 and one in 1957. The 1957 printing underwent some redrawing, the most obvious result of which was the smaller-sized eagle on the Albanian flag. Hence, your (mint?) stamp on the right belongs to the 1950 printing, the (used) stamp on the left to the 1957 printing.

The lower green strip that should exist on the Hungarian (not Yugoslavian) flag and that did not show up on the 1950 printing, became quite evident in the 1957 printing.

There are also other more minor differences, such as the reduced shading on the man's jacket in the later printing.

Thanks for the information, Vasia!

Different printings do not seem to be recorded in any of the English-language catalogues. I have a number of USSR stamps in completely different colours that are unlisted, but which presumably are reprints in different colours.

The different printings are mentioned in the specialized catalogues produced in Russia (some of them in the English language, such as Zagorsky, Lyapin, etc). If you have other questions, I would be glad to help.

I probably have a half dozen questions I'd like to ask!

Do you read Russian? If so, there must be a great wealth of information available to you online. It seems to me that, given the prices some of the varieties sell for, Russians must be ardent philatelists.

I wish I could read it! Despite that, I try to pick up bits and pieces from the information in Russian. The good thing is that there is also a lot of information from the various international specialized societies for Russian philately (in Britain, US, etc) and their journals (some of them now defunct).

I'd be glad to help if other questions arise.