Šnipiškės (Vilnius) arrival cancellation 1909

Вильна - Снипишки / Vilna Snipishki (now Šnipiškės, Vilnius, Lithuania)

Normally I should have named this thread as "Telšiai 1909" but since I got hold of a rare arrival cancellation of Šnipiškės, I have decided to write about it. It's a postal stationery during the Imperial Russian period sent in 1909 from Тельши / Telshi (now Telšiai, Lithuania) to Снипишки / Snipishki (now Šnipiškės, Vilnius, Lithuania). Снипишки/Šnipiškės is one of the Vilnius municipal districts, and was also at that time as you can see on the cancellation with the inscription "Вильна / Vilna - Снипишки/Snipishki".

Central Lithuania / Litwa Środkowa 1921

Those are complete sheets of stamps of Central Lithuania/Litwa Środkowa. Both are definitive issue of 1921. I got those in a forgotten antique bookstore in a small town in Kanagawa prefecture, japan.

Žagarė 1907

Жагоры / Zhagory (now Žagarė, Lithuania)

This is a postcard send in 1907 from Жагоры / Zhagory (now Žagarė, Lithuania), Ковен.Г.(Ковенская Губерния/Kovna Gubernia) to Mitava, which is now Jelgava, Latvia.

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.

Vilnius 1958

This is a Soviet postal stationery commemorating the centennial of russian postage stamp. Cancelled in Вильнюс/Vilnius in 1958.

Cancellations of Lit.SSR - 01

Kazlų-Rūda/Казлу-Руда 1965

Rūdiškės/Рудишкес 1980

Kavoliškis/Каволишкис 1976

Valkininkai St(Stotis)/Варкининкай Ст(Станция) 1984

Jonava/Йонава 1990 - Machine cancellation

Kaunas 1938

This is a Kowno/Kaunas - Wilno/Vinius FFC(First flight cover) sent in 1938 from Kaunas. Despite the bad diplomatic relation between Lithuania and Poland at that time, some third party country's airlines has linked the 2 cities. The opposite direction flight (Vilnius-Kaunas) has been executed the previous day which was on 15/07 1938. The cover has been sent as Spausdinys/printed matter.

Nice Wilno/Vilnius 2 Lot/airmail arrival cancellation on the back.

Vilnius 1963

3 covers with 2 kinds of commemorative cancellations both cancelled in 1963 in Вильнюс/Vilnius. The first 2 covers are postal stationeries with one of them a nice art work of the statue of peace in Volgograd.

Panevėžys 1907

ПоневѢж / Ponevezh (now Panevėžys, Lithuania)

It's a postal stationery sent in 1907 from ПоневѢж / Ponevezh (now Panevėžys, Lithuania) to Виндава/Vindava (now Ventspils, Latvia. Better known in the german name Windau). The letter "Ѣ" in ПоневѢж is not in use anymore in modern russian and mostly replaced by a simple "e". Cancellation of both "Поневеж" and "ПоневѢж" exists.

Šatės 1907

This is a postal money order sent in 1907 from Шаты/Shaty (now Šatės, Lithuania), Ковен.Г.(Ковенская Губерния/Kovna Gubernia) to Вилыкомıр/Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) also in Kovna gubernia. Šatės is a village not far from Skuodas with a population of little over 400.

Nice arrival cancellation of Vilkomir/Ukmergė

Cancellations of Imperial Russia

Surprisingly, used stamps with cancellations of Lithuania during the Imperial Russian rule are somewhat harder to find than covers from the same period. At least it seems to be so to me. Cancellations of Vilna/Vilnius are still findable if you look carefully but other regional towns are pretty rare. I guess I must check patiently one by one, taking time... Anyway, here are my lastest acquisitions.


This is a stamp with a 1910 cancellation of Кельмы/Kelmy, now Kelmė, Lithuania. It's a town in Šiauliai County with a population of 10000. Kelmė during the Tsarist time had a large number of Jewish population.

This stamp has a cancellation of Ворне/Vorne (now Varniai, Lithuania) Ков(Kovna gubernia). Varniai, with a present population of 2000, was the seat of the Samogitian Diocese. The first book of lithuanian language is believed to be written here.

Vilnius 1924

This is a postally unused postcard of the propaganda against the Polish occupation of Vilnius. The illustration depicts a personified Lithuania chained in Vilnius near the Gediminas tower with heart taken away by an eagle. Printed in 1924.

Seirijai 1931

It's a 15 Litas postal stationery sent in 1931 from Seirijai to Halle, Germany. Seirijai is a small town in Alytus county not far from the polish border with a population of approximately 900.

Kaunas mute cancellation 1914 - 1915

This is a postcard of Kowno (now Kaunas) with a rare 1st World War 4 straight horizontal lines mute cancellation during the Imperial Russian rule. Mute cancellations in this period have no date nor location information, mainly for security reasons. They have been used from 1914 to 1915 before the german capitulation of Kaunas in 1915. You can see on the 3rd line of the text that the card has been sent from "Kowno" on an unknown date.

Here is a link of an interesting article about Imperial Russian mute cancellation. It is mainly focusing on Latvia during the russian rule but part of it also applies to Lithuania too: link

Šilutė 1974

A cover with an illustration of Kaunas castle with a 1973 Soviet stamp of the Trakai castle. There is a commemorative cancellation of the philatelic exhibition held in Šilutė/Шилуте in 1974, with an image of Gediminas tower in Vilnius. Both castles and the tower are excellent example of the Lithuanian gothic architecture.

Kaunas 1926

A postcard of Kaunas (Kowno) cancelled in 1926 at the "Kaunas P.AG5" postal handling office #5. It was located at the railway station, later renamed "Kaunas - geležinkelio stotis".

Klaipėda 1929

This is a cover sent in 1929 from Klaipėda (Memel) to Switzerland. It looks like this envelope has been made for the Ausstellung Litauens in Memel/Lietuvos Paroda Klaipėdoje (1927 Memel exhibition). The letter is correctly franked with 60 centų according to the international mail rate at that time.

Kučkuriškės (Naujoji Vilnia) 1904

This is a postcard of Kutchkurichki (now Kučkuriškės, Lithuania) sent in 1904 from the post office in Вильна/Vilna (now Vilnius) to France. Kučkuriškės is part of Naujoji Vilnia which was a separate town from Vilnius at that time, therefore the postcard description states "près de Vilna", meaning "near Vilnius" in french. The picture shows the Vilnia river and the paper factory in the present Popieriaus gatvė/street. This factory has been built by the count Puslowski in 1823 and was operating until 2001. Most of the building shown in the picture had survived until today.

Polish stamps 1920 - 1939

Various Polish stamps have been used in the present Lithuanian territory between the year 1920 and 1939. It starts in 1920 with the issue of stamps of Litwa Środkowa (literary meaning "Middle Lithuania" in polish) known as "Central Lithuania" headed by the military government of the polish general Lucjan Żeligowski.

Central Lithuania stamp overprinted on lithuanian stamp

Various cancellations of Wilno on Central Lithuania stamps

Cancellation of Łyntupy (now Лынтупы/Lyntupy, Belarus)

After the annexation of Central Lithuania by Poland in 1922, regular polish postal service has been introduced in the region. These polish stamps were used in the present Lithuanian territory until 1939.

Cancellation of Druskieniki (now Druskininkai, Lithuania)

Panevėžys 2000

This is a commemorative cancellation of the 125th anniversary of the birth of Kazimieras(Casimir) Paltarokas, who was a bishop of Panevėžys and the only left in Lithuania in 1947 at the beginning of the Soviet rule. I personally think it is very nicely designed, representing the mitre (bishop's hat).



The stamp used is also from my favorite lithuanian stamp series depicting the decoration of crosses on the top of the various monuments across the country. According to post.lt, they have been designed by V.Jasanauskas, printed in Kaunas. This series have been printed until 2006 and the 2000 issue is the very first.