This is a registered cover sent in 1957 during the Soviet rule from Клайпеда/Klaipėda to Ilford, Essex county, UK. There are few reasons why I have bought this cover, first, because of the price of 1.80 Euro and second was the Soviet commemorative stamp of the 1956 Antarctica expedition which is on my list of wanted Soviet stamps (I love the design!). Soviet stamps of the 1940's and 50's with Lithuanian cancels are pretty difficult to collect, most of the time you end up with either Moscow, Kiev, Odessa or Riga CTOs. The left end stamp is also nice, it is one of the sports series issued on 1948.
Hi Ray,
ReplyDeleteThis one sentence caught me:
"...most of the time you end up with either Moscow, Kiev, Odessa or Riga CTOs"
Moscow CTOs I've seen plenty, but not the others. Could you show /share knowledge on these.
-k-
Hi Keijo! Nice to see you here!
ReplyDeleteActually it is not really a "knowledge" but more of an experience. As a collector of Lithuanian postmark, sometime I buy some cheap lots containing thousand of used Soviet stamps hoping to get few of Lithuania. I have noticed that many stamps of 70's and 80's have Moscow CTOs but many of 50's and 70's have Riga or Kiev CTOs (sometime Odessa). All these still have gum on the back so I'm assuming these are CTOs. I might have few left so I will send you if are interested.
Here is the result of a quick 5 minutes search through my box of unwanted stamps:
ReplyDeletehttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cztza_bm-S8/U2e5Qa_xvwI/AAAAAAAAFe4/XeVgbJl_mbA/s1600/cto.jpg
Hello again,
ReplyDeleteand thanks for showing these. I'm more than happy to bite these if you've got no use for them. Too bad none of these show the date part (as most, if not all Russian CTOs of the era have got inscription "д-к" right below date).
You definitely got me interested on these ;)
-k-
PS. I 'lurk' here few times a month ;)
Keijo,
ReplyDeleteSent! and... lurking is of course welcome!
To tell you the truth, I have never really paid attention to Moscow CTO until you've mentioned. I've looked further and I actually found some CTO with "д-к" which I have never seen on any of my Lithuanian soviet postmarks. I also found some without any letters which is also not found in my Lithuanian collection. Here are some I've found:
ReplyDeletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KZCnW7FnUto/U2m-5MyZKJI/AAAAAAAAFfg/XNr8PwFiYkg/s1600/russian_soviet_stamp_cto.jpg
Hi Ray,
ReplyDeleteand thanks. The reason is that many stamps of the 1960s were CTOd up to 1970/80/90s, but the practice of using "д-к" stopped in between (around 1973 or so). So most CTO stamps of the era can exist with or without the 'for collector' marking.
-k-
Keijo,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this useful information!