Russia Under Finnish Occupation

Found this in a pile of cheap Finnish stamps. Looks like a genuine overprint at first glance. Can anyone confirm this? Would be a great reference to have, if I ever come across higher denomination with much higher CV. Any takes on the town name on the cancel?




Also found two more stamps with what looks like an overprint. I assume these are some sort of local precancels?



Thanks a lot.

Looks good to me. see:
http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...nland-aunus/
In addition, the first printing measures 10.9 mm wide, the 2nd measures 10.75 mm wide.

You should try to find out if LAIT... was in eastern Karelia. If it is LAITILA as suspected, that's in Finland proper and is probably not correct/legitimate usage.

The second two are straightline Finnish town cancels, of which there are quite a few different. Loue still exists.

The Facit Special catalog says. "Normal Finnish stamps of the Lion type were used at first (cancelled with the Russian postal cancellation OLONETS) but in June 1919 special stamps were issued for the district. At the same time special postal cancellations of two types were introduced. Two-circled metal cancellation-stamp: Saamijarvi Postitoimisto. Oval rubber cancellation-stamps: Postitoimisto at the top, the name in the middle and two posthorns at the bottom (black, violet, blue, green). The cancellation made by the metal cancellation-stamp is known postdated. Stamps cancelled by a rubber cancelling-stamp from Rajakontu with cut k are post-cancelled."

In the Aunus listing, Facit includes a small map of the area. There is no town shown which begins with the letters "LAIT".

Hi,

The two straight line marks are postmarks from small villages rather than precancels.

Loue is a village north of Tervola in Lapland.

There are a few villages with names beginning "Koskernn" (and there are other possibilities as well).

hy-brasil

Thank you very much. I looked up some of the history of Aunus Expedition and it looks like that Red Army pushed back Finnish forces by September of 1919. The cancel date states May 13 1920, so I believe it would be very safe to say that it was not a proper use.

Interesting.

Here's an example of a Säämijärvi Postitoimisto postmark on piece:

bookbndrbob and nigelc

Thank you gentlemen as well.

So, to sum it up. The cancel is not a proper cancel as it about a year too late, and appears to be a regular town cancel, likely Laitila which is nowhere near Russian border. But the overprint appears to be below the cancel, and looks more or less legit. So, unless overprint is fake and it is on top of the cancel, or an overprint and cancel are both fakes, it would be interesting to know how this stamp was processed through post office. Was it just an accident, or deliberate fraud, or maybe these stamps were still valid for postage even with overprint.

Nigel

Nice piece.

Thank you Danko.

I think it's genuine as I bought it from a well respected Finnish dealer many years ago.

I'm always cautious about statements that an overprint is over or under a cancellation as the eye tends to take the higher density printing as being on top.

Peace was not declared until October 1920, so perhaps AUNUS overprints and the special cancels were still being used up to that time. There is no invalidation date given by FACIT for the overprints, if there is one, either.