Anyone Doing The Same?

Nigelc, the Bukhara card appears to be postally used: it is addressed to somebody in France, and has a short message in French.

Here is a cover from Arolsen, in the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont, using Prussian stamps:




The capital of the principality of Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, in Thuringia, used Prussian stamps as we see here:




Its exclaves used stamps of Thurn and Taxis, with numerical postmarks 291-3 (Arnstadt, Grossbreitenbach, and Gehren), and 217 (Langewiesen).

Hi Greaden.

Thanks, of course that makes it even better!

These are two lovely items. Thanks for sharing them.

I really like the postal stationery envelope from Arolsen.

Fabulous information everybody! And some very interesting covers greaden. Thanks everyone for a most interesting thread.
I didn't know that Italy occupied parts of France during WW II, even more to look for
Cjd, a very valid point about keeping duplicates. I have not been keeping them until now, but more and more often I regret I don't have them to look through as more knowledge becomes available. First of all related to postmarks/usage.
Keep it going!

Back to Denmark / SH: If anybody is curious, this site lists numeral cancels used in SH: https://www.gpfs-online.org/danemar...numeros1.php

Happy Independence Day to the people of Finland.

Independence was declared 100 years ago today.

I'm very much a beginner when it come to Finnish stamps and postmarks but I'd like to share a few examples of what I've found so far.

I aim to show some regular Russian stamps used in Finland in a later post but to start by setting the scene with some examples of other stamps and postmarks around that time in Finland.

I think you can see from the stamps and the postmarks signs of the rise of Finnish nationalism and the Russian state seeking to exert more control over the province.

From 1875 onwards Finland used stamps with this arms design:



This has the name of the country in Swedish at the left and Finnish at the right.

Then in 1889 a new design was introduced which now had the Finnish country name at the top and the Russian version at the right:



We can see here the use of multilingual names on the postmarks too.

The middle stamp has two names: IMATRA (in Finnish and Swedish) at the top and the equivalent Russian spelling at the bottom.

The right hand stamp has parts of the Finnish name PORVOO at the bottom right, the Swedish name BORGÅ at the bottom left and the Russian name at the top left is a Cyrillic spelling of Borgå.

The city of IMATRA in South Karelia is now very close to the Russian border.

The loss of Finnish teritory in 1940 and 1944 behind this border will be reflected a number of postmarks shown here.

In 1891 a new set of stamps was issued for Finland which were based on the standard Russian designs of the time but with the addition of small rings in the design. These had the Russian currency:



From 1899 onwards new sets were introduced using the Russian designs without rings but with Finnish currency:



Here we see parts of more of the multilingual postmarks:

WIIPURI = Viipuri (Fin) / Viborg (Sw), now Vyborg in Russia.

HELSINGFORS (Sw) = Helsinki (Fin)

TAMPERE (Fin) = Tammerfors (Sw)

...ASJÄRVI (various possibilities)

The city of Viipuri/Viborg was lost to Russia in 1944.

The final Russian-based designs were introduced in 1911:



The postmarks here are:

Russian spelling of Tammerfors (Sw) = Tampere (Fin)

TERIJOKI (Fin & Sw) now Zelenogorsk in Russia.

TURKU (Fin) = ÅBO (Sw)

KAIPIAINEN is a village in Kouvola.

Terijoki was also lost to Russia in 1944.

My last item today is a block of the 5 penni used in Turku/Åbo.



Here the Finnish name TURKU is printed faintly at the left, Swedish ÅBO at the top and the Russian spelling of Åbo at the bottom of the postmark.

Very entertaining

I'd like to focus in this post on regular Russian stamps used in Finland.

Most of my examples are again bilingual (Finnish / Russian) or trilingual (Swedish / Finnish / Russian) circular datestamps:



HELSINGFORS HELSINKI = Helsingfors (Sw) / Helsinki (Fin)

RAUTU is now Sosnovo in Russia.

TAMPERE TAMMERFORS = Tampere (Fin) / Tammerfors (Sw).

Here are three more examples on piece:



UOTSOLA = Uotsola in Pirkanmaa

SVEABORG WIAPORI = Sveaborg (Sw) / Viapori (Fin) and now called Suomenlinna in Finnish.

RAIVOLA is now Roshchino in Russia.

This is a cancellation in Swedish:



POSTSTYRELSENS / RÄKENSKAPS AP...

Here are two pieces with rural number postmarks:



I can't read the left one but the other is clearly 871.

Does anyone have a access to a reference to identify this?

I have one Finnish postmark reference but it only includes post offices from the areas lost to Russia in 1940-1944.

Finally there are a large number of straight-line village postmarks and I've had problems trying to identify these:



Jorfyäs or Jorfväs? Could this be Jorvas?

Kuokkolampi near Imatra

Vojakkala - I guess this is village between Tampere and Helsinki but there is also a village with the same name in Lapland.

NigelC: I'm chartreuse with envy of the Russian Finland postmarks you've illustrated for us. That area is great fun for me, too, and so far I've more than a hundred Russian Finland towns, but only a few of the fine quality strikes that you've shown us. Keep it up! I'm watching, too.

Here are a few more.

Thanks EdziuMM for your kind comments but that's all I have.

Thanks for sharing your stamps bookbndrbob.

It's nice to see two more TERIJOKI postmarks.

Here's an example of serendipity at work! Yesterday I started reading this topic just after I'd soaked a handful of stamps from this box of several thousand stamps. I had been thinking of sharing this box on another topic as my worst buy - it cost me very little but the stamps are not in great condition, many are dirty or damaged or both, and most stamps seem to be of the lowest or commonest values in their sets. Having soaked a couple of hundred I was quite depressed and thinking it was a pointless exercise.

But a good number of them have clear postmarks and a lot are quite early. If I winnow out the ones with interesting postmarks and soak those, particularly the Hungarian ones, of which there seem to be many, I may have the makings of an interesting page or two

The whole aspect of how stamps and postal history reflect the changing fortunes of life, how country borders change and so on interests me a great deal.

Exactly !

crispinhj - Seems like you have a lot of nice stuff for hunting postmarks! For a start, I can see a nice Netherlands lozenge numeral '50'. The good thing about collecting postmarks is that it makes no difference whether the stamps are "the lowest or commonest values in their sets" - actually nice or interesting postmarks more often go undetected on common stamps, so a box like this can be a gold-mine for postmarks. Happy hunting!
Jon

Jon

I agree - it really was one of those lightbulb moments! Last night I spent fifteen minutes pre-sorting some of the stamps into three groups to reduce the amount of soaking time that could be wasted soaking stamps for no reason

1. Stamps with interesting postmarks to soak
2. Stamps with interesting postmarks to keep but not soak because much of the postmark was on the attached paper
3. Damaged stamps that are so common they're not worth spending time on and that don't have any postmark interest

I suppose there may be other categories such as

4. Common stamps that are lovely examples - but I haven't seen any of those yet
5. Blocks on paper

I've already found several of those Netherlands numeral postmarks, a French TPO postmark and a number of Hungarian postmarks that I have high hopes of. Sorting a load of Austrian stamps recently to go in my "normal" collections(!) I was surprised by the number of Prague and Brno postmarks, which caught my eye because I have family and friends in Brno

I'm hoping the Hungarian stamps will provide a whole load of similar postmarks from the broader Austro-Hungarian empire. As well as these there were a number of nice clear postmarks from France, Germany and Belgium, albeit many of the stamps weren't in the greatest condition, missing corners, perforations and just generally a bit tatty. But I don't think that's going to matter if the postmark is clear.

A box of this size with off paper small stamps would probably have at least 10,000 stamps in. Given that most of this is on paper I estimate there's over 5,000 stamps to go through. That's a lot of fun to be had! My brief pre-sorting may not be typical of the whole box but the piles were roughly even so there's clearly a lot of investigation to do ...........

Crispin

Yes, Austrian Empire stamps are in my opinion the most interesting of all

@crispin - I applaud your enthusiasm - would love to come and take part in your treasure hunt Enjoy!

crispinhj, I love to just wade through boxes like yours searching for those interesting postmarks! gotta be more fun than sky-diving!
blaamand's got the right idea about the austro-hungarian empire. probably the most complicated country ever for us postmark mavens.