Anyone Doing The Same?

Nigel, I've never heard of what you are suggesting, but I certainly agree it's interesting, and it made me curious. If I understand you correctly, you are say independent states used stamps from other states, and never issued their own (because they united before getting to issue their own) Do you have other examples than fm Germany? Maybe some states in Italy?

I suppose you are aware that kind of the opposite situation happened after the union of South Africa was established. Even tough the former colonies/provinces were no longer independent, SA did not issue stamps for quite some time, and stamps from the members continued in use even tough they were no longer independent. Fascinating!

Nitric, I would really like to have a look at your Poland forerunners on Russian stamps, and also those Russian used in Finland. Love it, well done to find them all Remember:


Suppose you will have early Danish used on Iceland as well then? ( I have not found any yet, but have been looking for them!)

Hi Blaamand,


I haven't thought about this much apart from the German states.

I can't think of any Italian candidates. I thought at first that Lucca might have been a possibility but it became part of Tuscany again in 1847 before stamps were used in the region.

I guess the next place to consider would be the many Indian states that didn't issue their own postage stamps.

Some of these were large in size with substantial populations so, for example, I'd expect we could find Indian stamps with postmarks from states such as Mysore and Baroda. Maybe Tony could comment on what should exist if he reads this?
I

Some collectors collect these stamps used in other states, such as Natal stamps used in Transvaal etc. This is especially the case for the period up to 1913:
http://www.africastamps.co.uk/Resou.../guide1.html


I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.


No, I don't have any. I have some Danish stamps used in the Faroe Islands but these are much easier to find.

Thanks for your reply nigel. The Indian states are absolutely candidates, but you need to be able to understand the postmark also to find any evidence of such usage, and they're not easy to read I believe a major factor for me for the fascination for finding such postmarks is that one can do discoveries oneself on otherwise 'worthless' stamps, but that wouldn't be to easy on the Indians....

I am looking forward to checking both SA and Aussie states for X-usage!

For German states that used other's postal system, besides Saxe-Altenburg using Saxony (look for numerical postmark 11), and all the states using Thurn and Taxis, several used Prussian stamps: Waldeck und Pyrmont (Arolsen is the main town), Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Bernburg. Also several exclaves of other states used Prussia: Sondershausen in Thuringia, and Birkenfeld located in the Rhineland but belonged to Oldenburg.

Thurn and Taxis served quite a few states, mostly in Hesse and in Thuringia.

As for India, Sikkim is a candidate that maintained Independence for much longer than the other Indian states, but used the Indian postal service.

In Russia, Bukhara and Kiva were emirates that did not issue stamps but Russia maintained offices there.

Regarding Italy, all the Italian states that existed during the era of postage stamps produced their own. Where postmarks from lost worlds get interesting is Sardinia: Savoy and the County of Nice were part of that kingdom until 1860, when France took them over. So, look for Sardinian stamps postmarked in towns now in France.

certainly! This transfer of land from Italy to France is not widely known, at least I learned about it myself only last year when investigating a 'via Nizza' cancel on a French cover, which was sent via Nice while the city was still in Italy and named Nizza.

Similarly, look for Danish stamps that were used in parts of Schleswig-Holstein that are now in Germany. Naturally there's been border adjustments all over the world, but first off all in Europe. Not many such territorial adjustments in the Americas after introduction of postage stamps (?), but guess one can find similar from areas by the Pacific, (Litoral and Tarapaca) lost by Bolivia and Peru to Chile. Very interesting when postmarks on stamps holds evidence of historic events.

Hi Blaamand,

I don't have many Polish postmarks on Russian stamps but here they are.

First are two Russian imperial one rouble stamps with clear Warsaw postmarks:

VARSHAVA / III Expeditsiya No. 1

VARSHAVA / III Expeditsiya No. 2

III Expeditsiya = 3rd Dispatch office



Two more part VARSHAVA CDS postmarks:



Four examples of VARSHAVA barred-postmarks:

Here are a few more that are not so clearly from Poland.

Three four-ring postmarks used in Poland including two from Warsaw railways stations with "D..." in the centre:

The two railway postmarks could be "D.B.", "D.P." or "D.W."

The first postmark could be a Polish numeral or another railway mark.



Finally a square-cancellation from Warsaw:

Hi Greaden,

Thanks for sharing your observations.

I tried to look up a number of towns in the state in the StampsX database but only found one other town listed there which had a straight-line postmark.

I'm sure many more will exist.

Yes, the last time I looked into this I identified a number of towns in Waldeck & Pyrmont with postmarks.

I'm very interested to learn about your other examples.

Yes, that's a very good choice.

I was only vaguely aware of these.

Do you have any examples you can share with us?

Nigilc, that's some marvelous postmarks. Thanks for tempting me.....Envy !

Here is a Russian stamp on a card from Bukhara, an emirate that was located roughly in present-day Uzbekistan:

I love this thread! Everything to this point has been interesting. I'll try to keep the streak alive.

According to Billig, the Saxe-Altenburg postal system was leased to Saxony from Thurn und Taxis from 1844 to 1869.

There are two postal districts listed for Saxe-Altenburg, and since the number of post offices is manageable, I'll list them:
Altenburg division:
Altenburg
Ronneberg
Schmolln (Schmoelln)
Gossnitz (Goessnitz)
Meuselwitz

Saal-Eisenberg division:
Eisenberg
Roda
Kahla

and an enclave with three more offices:
Lucka
Orlamunda
Russdorf

[The list has umlauts for Schmolln and Gossnitz...I added the spellings with the "e".]

The Sardinia listing shows 33 offices for the Region of Nice and almost 90 in the Province of Savoie. Lots to look for (and too many to type in).

This is a variation on Blaamand's point, but the list of Schleswig Holstein town cancels distinguishes between Danish cancels and SH cancels, and lists 21 towns that are only found with Danish cancels. Lots more to look for that I never thought about in the past.

This is why I can't bring myself to get rid of duplicates. There is always more to know, and more to look for. And as it turns out, a bunch of stamps that look passingly similar, but aren't actually duplicates.

Thanks Blaamand!

This is fun, as each time I prepare some stamps to show I find out more about them.

Tomorrow I plan to show some Russian stamps used in Finland.

Hi Greaden,

Thanks for sharing that lovely card.

Having the clear second strike adds so much.

Was this card postally used or a CTO souvenir?

Hi Cjd,

Thanks very much for sharing all this information.

Many of these Saxe-Altenburg names are familiar but my only reference had named them in terms of their economic activity so I had no proof they had post offices.

The whole Nice / Savoy story is a fascinating one, how the Dukes of Savoy acquired the Kingdom of Sicily, swapped it for the Kingdom of Sardinia, became Kings of Italy etc.

I wonder how the World War II Italian occupation of Nice and other French areas is reflected in the postal history of the region?

I very much agree with you about duplicates!