Recent Acquisitions

Heydekrug, German Empire 1897 (now Šilutė, Lithuania)

Жеймели / Zheimeli 1913 (now Žeimelis, Lithuania), Ков (Kovna gubernia)

Wilno 1919 (now Vilnius, Lithuania) rare 1919-20 Polish occ.

Žarėnai 1924

Wilno 1927 (now Vilnius, Lithuania) rare Wilno 11 vertical line cancel 

Nowa Wilejka 1929 (now Naujoji Vilnia, Lithuania

Kaunas 1935 - Hotel Metropolis

Berlin - Zentralflughafen / Central Airport transit postmark

Kaunas - Gelež. Stotis / Kaunas Railway Station 1935

This is an airmail cover of the Hotel Metropolis sent in 1935 from Kaunas to London. This Hotel Metropolis was the most prestigious hotel in Lithuania during the interwar period, where most of the important guests stayed. It has been nationalized in 1922, served many celebrities and state guests from Marc Chagall to Chiune Sugihara. The hotel is still operating today (but not "prestigious" as it used to be back then, at least when I've stayed there myself in 2005) at the exact same building which you can see on the cover hotel logo illustration.
Interestingly, the cover is addressed to a ship captain but sent to the office that owns the ship rather than the ship itself. The was no direct flight from Kaunas to London at that time I guess, so you see a transit postmark of Berlin Zentralflughafen / Central airport on the back of the cover.
The Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara / 杉原千畝 famous for issuing life saving visas to the Jewish people during WWII, spent his final days in Lithuania here. He stayed at Hotel Metropolis after the Japanese consulate was forcibly closed down by the occupying Soviet authority, continued issuing visas in the hotel room. Many witnesses stated that he even wrote visas at the Kaunas railway station platform when he was leaving Lithuania (and coincidentally, the postmark of this cover is Kaunas railway station!). Today you can see 2 commemorative plates to honor this event, one at Kaunas railway station and the other one at Hotel Metropolis.

Klaipėda-Šiauliai Railway post 1930

Postmark of the T.P.O. (Pašto vagonas) line Klaipėda - Šiauliai

This is a cover sent in 1930 by the railway post (Pašto vagonas) line Klaipėda - Šiauliai to Berlin, Germany. Unfortunately I don't know where is it sent from because the sender have not written any return address. 30 centas was the postal rate for the domestic letter but this rate also applied to Germany, Latvia and Estonia. To other countries, is was 60 centas.

Riga-Kybartai Railway post 1928 - Postcard of Dainų šventė in Kaunas 1924

Dainų šventė in Kaunas 1924 (high resolution)

T.P.O. (Pašto vagonas) Ryga - Kybartai 1928

This is postcard send in 1928 by the railway post Ryga (Lithuanian spelling for Riga, the Latvian capital city) - Kybartai from Kėdainiai to France. It is a real picture postcard and shows the Lithuanian traditional song festival called Dainų šventė. The one on the picture is the first one held in Kaunas in 1924, the Lithuanian version of Wikipedia for the entry "Dainų šventė" shows a picture of the same event taken from a slightly different angle.

Šaukėnai 1931

This is a registered mail sent in 1931 from Šaukėnai to the district court in Šiauliai (Šiaulių apygardos teismas). It looks like there were some kind of legal documents. Šaukėnai is a small town in Šiauliai County with a population of little over 700. Nice arrival cancel of Šiauliai on the back!

Sejny 1919

Seinai (now Sejny, Poland) 16 May 1919

While collecting stamps for years, I'm pretty sure you have experienced a "what I thought it is, actually, wasn't" phenomena at least once. Well, it just happened to me so I thought I would post about it. This is a Lithuania classic stamp, to be precise, a Michel 14. I thought the postmark on it was an early example of Raseiniai postmark, for some reason labeling it so without much thinking. Recently, I was just going through my collection and one particular Raseiniai cancel on an air post stamp caught my eye. Why? well, I thought the size of the letter on the postmark is slightly smaller than the one on my Michel 14. So I took them our and compared, and wow wow wow! it wasn't "slightly" but pretty obvious!

Isn't it possible that 1919 Raseiniai cancel is bigger than the 1924's one? Maybe everybody knows it because it is mentioned in LPS journal and I'm the only one in the world not knowing about it... Or maybe some kind of previously not known Raseiniai cancel? I thought it would be wise to check on Lithuanian Philately.com before arming my fantasies with Icarus's wings.

1919 Raseiniai and Seinai cancels taken from Lithuanian Philately.com.

Looking further at my Michel 14 I have noticed that the space between the letter "S" and the previous one is way too wide. So I've looked with the possibility of the letter S being the first letter in my mind as well. Lithuanian Philately.com is really the best site earth can provide when it comes to 1919-1923 Lithuanian postmarks and they once again proved it to me. My Michel 14 is clearly not Raseiniai but it turns out to be Seinai. When compering their 1919 Raseiniai and Seinai cancels, you can see that if you draw up and parallel line at the left edge of the number "9" of the date, the Raseiniai one does not touch the letter "N" but the Seinai one touches big time and so does my Michel 14. So it is Seinai! This was another lesson that you should not label something without much doubt.

Seinai is actually not in present Lithuania. Now it it called Sejny and belongs to Poland. According Lithuania Philately (yes, again), Sejny had a branch of Postgebiet ob. Ost during WWI and later, a Lithuanian post office for little less than 8 months but not consecutively. The Lithuanian postmarker was supplied in early May 1919 so it matches the postmark on my Michel 14 as well.

A military Field Post card sent from Sejny in 1916 during the WWI German occupation

For further postal history of Seinai, look at the article on Lithuanian Philately: Seinai 1919-1920

Here is a modern Polish FDC cancelled in Sejny with a stamp of the Madonna of Sejny. The church on the cover is St. Mary basilica, a part of the huge castle looking former Dominican monastery where the statue is preserved. I have visited once the town and found the little town very charming, specially the central square filled with bunch of Baroque buildings. I very much recommend it!

Cancellations of Memelgebiet/Memel district - 11

Memel (now Klaipėda) rectangular postmark on North German Confederation / Norddeutscher Postbezirk stamp

Coadjuthen 1893 (now Katyčiai)

Galsdon-Joneiten 1920 (now Galzdonai)

Sziesze 1920 (now Šyša)

Naustubriai 1935 (former Neustubbern, Memelgebiet)

Šiauliai 1923

This is a cover sent in 1923 from the Žemės ūkio kooperatyvų sąjunga „Gamintojas” in Šiauliai to Taastrup, Denmark. Žemės ūkio kooperatyvų sąjunga „Gamintojas” was one of the numerous trade unions of coorperatives established throughout Lithuania during the early 1920's. In 1927, Gamintojas was eventually absorbed by „Lietūkis“, another agricultural coorperatives union based in Kaunas.

Žagarė 1924

This is a Russian new year's postcard locally used in 1924 within the town of Žagarė. I know the card is not in perfect shape but I bought it anyway because it is damaged in a right way which gives somehow an authenticity of the antiqueness. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. Žagarė is definitely not a big town so it is in a way unusual to see a locally used card. But why use a new year card on 29th of February? hm... beats me... I know that the Russians used to celebrate new year in January 17 (or are they still?) according to the Gregorian calender but still there is a big gap between February 29.

Kaunas 1920 - Postcard of Zapyškis

This is a postcard of Szapjeshischki (now Zapyškis, Lithuania) sent in 1920 from Kaunas to Germany. The German name Szapjeshischki probably comes from the Polish name of Zapyškis which is Sapieżyszki. The church you see on the picture is what makes this little town with a population of 250 famous, one of the finest surviving example of a gothic structure in Lithuania. If you ever have a chance to visit Kaunas by your own transportation, I would strongly recommend to make a short detour through Zapyškis to see this church of St. John the Baptist.

Recent Acquisitions

Here are some of the recent acquisitions of stamps:

WWI German occupation with a postmark of Schaulen (now Šiauliai, Lithuania) 1916

a stationery cut out (what a pity!) with a postmark Heydekrug (now Šilutė, Lithuania) 1895

Polish occupation period with a part of machine cancel of Wilno 2 (now Vilnius, Lithuania) 1938

Soviet stamps with a postmark of Vilnius C. 1941 during the first USSR annexation 

Postmark: Lekėčiai 1929

Postmark: Višvilė 1928 (present Viešvilė, former Wischwill, Memelgebiet)

Postmark: Alunta 1937

Šiauliai 1940

This is an airmail cover sent in 1940 from Šiauliai to Ostende, Belgium. The company Semlinas (or simply Semlin) owned 1 of the 2 biggest factories in Šiauliai in term of number of employees, along with the shoe making company Batas during the interwar period.
It is also interesting that there was a Warsaw (Varsovie in French, Warschaustraat) street in Ostende. I wonder if they didn't have any Vilnius street.

Kaunas 1924

This is a postcard sent in 1924 from Kaunas to Zele, Belgium. The name Zele sounds so cute! It's a town in the Flemish region with a population of little over 20000. The picture on the postcard is the Kaunas main railway station as it says in the trilingual description on the back. The building itself looks pretty much the same but the platform doesn't have any roof like they do now.