Šiauliai 1990

Registration label Šiauliai - 8

The inscription USSR (CCCP) and Lit. SSR is omitted, only Шяуляй (Šiauliai) is left

Почта (Post) with the inscription USSR (CCCP) omitted 

I'm sure you have already heard of provisional stamps or postmarks but, what about a provisional meter franking? This is a registered cover sent on 9 May 1990 from the post office Šiauliai 8 to Vilnius, with a rare provisional meter stamp. Everything that relates to USSR (CCCP) is omitted and on the top of the advertisement space, "Lietuvos Respublika" is added. Lithuania declared the restoration of independence on March 1990 but it wasn't until 1991 that the USSR and the international community recognize it. So when this cover was used, Lithuania was in kind of a state of limbo, no one knew for sure if it was in fact an independent state or not. Some post office kept using Soviet name (especially in the Polish speaking region near the border of Belarus) but some like Šiauliai 8, chose to act as the Lithuanian Post even if they were dependent on Soviet postage stamp and currency. The first post-Soviet Lithuanian stamps were issued only on October 1990.

Juodupė 1990

This is a cover sent from Juodupė in 1990 to the UK. One of the things I was underestimating was that I thought it would be relatively easy to collect post-Soviet provisional postmarks but I must say I was wrong. Large towns are indeed not so hard but Juodupė class towns are somehow not so easy. The postmark is made out of the Soviet one, excluding the inscriptions indicating CCCP, but the Soviet stamps and postal stationery were still valid at that time.

Гродна 1919

I haven't had much time to post on this blog nor to acquire new material lately, so I went quickly through my stock book to look what I can post and these 2 stamps caught my eyes. I've noticed I haven't posted yet the Гродна/Hrodna (Gardinas in Lithuanian) cancel. Гродна/Hrodna is a city at the edge of the present Belarussian territory between Vilnius and Białystok, Poland, known as Гродно/Grodno in Russian language. The above postmark has been used in the post office of Hrodna in 1919 when it belonged to Lithuania. It is written in Cyrillic and it says: Гродненская почтово телеграфн. контора / Grodnenskaya pochtovo telegrafn. kontora. This "date-less" postmark was only for provisional use but the city was soon taken by the Poles and never came back to Lithuania since then.

Eišiškės 1991

Эйшишкес/Eišiškės postmark with the Lithuanian name taken off

Here is an interesting cover I would like to show you today. It is a cover sent in 1991 from Eišiškės to Warsaw, Poland. The fact that the sender writes her address "Eiszyski" (the proper Polish spelling is Ejszyszki) is already bizarre but that's not what I want to point out. Please look at the above postmark. It's a provisional postmark made out of the Soviet one. A typical Lithuanian provisional postmark usually takes out all Soviet elements written in Cyrillic and leaves the Lithuanian spelling of the name of the post office.

Typical provisional postmark

But this postmark of Eišiškės does exactly the opposite and leaves only the Soviet elements. There is an explanation for that. Eišiškės is a town in Šalčininkai district and the percentage of Polish speaking population of this district exceed 80%. At the time when Lithuania declared the restoration of independence, they feared that an ethnic discrimination would follow. Šalčininkai district local council took a leading part for the formation of self-declared autonomous region "Polish National-Territorial Region" (Polski Kraj Narodowo-Terytorialny in Polish) which neither the Lithuanian government nor the Polish government ever recognized. This movement lost support when the 1991 august coup in Soviet Union failed. Lithuanian local postmasters at that time were given the authority to decide the their own local provisional postmark and this lead to the creation of this bizarre postmark as an expression of their political view.

Telšiai 1994

A cover sent in 1994 from Telšiai to Tokyo, Japan. The stamp is one of the 4 stamps issued in 1993 to commemorate the Pope. What is surprising about this cover is that despite the year 1994, they still use provisional postmark! I assume it is not the central post office of Telšiai that has used the postmark but some small branch post office. Or, it could be that in some reason, their regular postmarks couldn't be used on that day (1994 may 7th). Anyway, the circumstance remain unknown.

Raseiniai 1919

Those are the stamps with an inscription "Raseinių apskričio pašto ženklas". It was locally issued for Raseiniai in 1919. The colorful cancellations are provisional ones. According to lithuanianphilately.com, the 2 rings red curcular postmark was the first edition and the 3 rings blue postmark is the third one. The stamp itself has 2 types, Type 1 with the frame corner opened (the stamps on the right side), Type 2 is closed (left side).

Kintai 1939

A postally unused card from Kinten (now Kintai, Lithuania) cancelled in march 30th 1939. Kintai is a village in Šilutė district with a population of little over 800.

Šiauliai 1990

This is a registered cover sent from Šiauliai in 1990 to Prague/Praha, Czechoslovakia (Czechoslovakia cease to exist on 31st of december 1992). The stamps are the first series of the newly independent republic of Lithuania. In Šiauliai, Soviet stamps were still in use for awhile after independence but an inscription "Lietuvos Republikos PAŠTAS" was added instead. Other locations also put "Lietuvos Republikos PAŠTAS" with a variaty of their own postmarks or adding it in a machine cancellations. Provisional postmarks were often used to cancel stamps. In this case, it has been made out of old Soviet postmark by simply erasing everything except "Šiauliai" and the date.


This registered cover was sent in may 1990, before the issue of the first series in october, therefore using Soviet stamps.


A rare postal incription error written JMPRIMES instead of IMPRIMES ("printed matter" in french).

Kamščiai 1939

A 3p Hindenburg stamp on a piece with a postmark of Kamščiai from 1939. Kamščiai is a tiny village with a population little over 60. Kampspowilken is the german name. The date of the cancellation is very interesting, since Memel territory (which Kampspowilken is part of) has been annexed to the Third Reich in late evening on the 22nd of march 1939, 23rd is exactly the first day of use of stamps as part of german territory.

Lūšė 1919 - 1922

Those are early First Republic stamps cancelled with a provisional postmark of Lūšė, Lithuania (also called Palūšė), a small village with a railway station in Mažeikiai district. Not much is known but according to lithuanianphilately.com, those provisional postmark were used sometime between 1919 and 1922. It is interesting that it has a small "dot" at the end on each postmarks. Here is a link of the article posted on lithuanianphilately.com: link

Natkiškiai 1939

Postally unused propaganda cover of germanisation of place names cancelled in Natkiškiai in 1939. Memel territory was annexed to the Third Reich on the 23rd of march 1939, therefore exactly a week before this cover has been cancelled. Here you can see that the german postmark was not ready in use yet and used provisional cancellation of Nattkischken.

Šilutė 1939

It's a (surprisingly) postally used propaganda postcard from Heydekrug, now Šilutė. It has been used locally within Heydekrug, overfranked. There are still the official lithuanian cancellations with the name "Šilutė" and the provisional "Heydekrug" cancellation along with the propaganda "Das Memelland ist Frei" (The Memel is free).

Nemakščiai 1942

A German Reich Hindenburg stamp on a piece with a very rare provisional postmark of Nemakschtschen, now Nemakščiai, Lithuania. Postzweigstelle was the branch post offices of Dienspost Ostland. The dates of use were handwritten. It is not known until when it was exactly used.



The same stamp also on a piece with a defitive Nemakschtschen cancellation.
Acquired in 2004 on Delcampe.