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There is not the slightest doubt that this issue is unnecessary and intended to make money for someone through the charitable inclinations of stamp collectors, who are expected to be stupid enough to buy the pretty stickers. Until we have evidence that they pay postage we shall not recognize them. Even if, eventually, we are forced to admit that they have a postal franking power, it will not alter Our opinion that they have no philatelic worth.

LATVIA: Mr. Eugene Klein shows us

an unrecorded variety of one of the stamps issued during the Russian occupation of Mitau in 1919. This is the 70k on 15k red brown and blue, surcharged with cross in a rectangular frame (No. 449), with the surcharge inverted.

This country has a new currency, 100 centimes equal I lat, instead of 100 kapeikas equal I ruble. The lat is equal to I franc gold. Of course, there will be new postage stamps to correspond with the new

that they have falsifications, for such stamps were never issued."

We think he has made a slip here and probably intended his remark to apply only to the inverted overprints, since the normal varieties are all very common.

Despatches to the daily press announce that the Council of Ambassadors has awarded Memel to Lithuania. Glory be! We hope this means an end to the tiresome procession of surcharged stamps which, since 1920, has represented the supposed postal needs of this trifling spot of earth. We may be going from bad to worse, for Lithuania has done much to disgust philatelists, but she is now credited with the intent to establish a new currency and with the promise of a permanent issue of stamps. Let us hope her good intentions will be carried out and that it will not be thought necessary to provide separate stamps for Memel.

currency. It is expected that the stamp NETHERLANDS: Mr. A. P. de Koen

of 20 centimes, replacing that of I ruble, will be the first to appear.

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[EMEL: Mr. George H. Jaeger, Editor of the Baltic Philatelist, informs us that there has been an extensive counterfeiting of the air post stamps of the first

ing has shown us a letter franked by an imperforate block of the 5c carmine, Queen's head type of 1898-99, and Mr. H. K. Salzberg has a similar cover with an imperforate pair of the 10c gray reengraved (No. 125). Mr. de Koening tells us that there was a shortage of stamps, owing to a strike in the establishment where they were printed, and that these imperforate stamps were placed on sale, for two days only, in three of the smaller cities.

USSIA: Mr. N. Ananieff writes us:

and second issues. A well known stamp R think readers of your Journal

dealer, his wife, and a printer are involved in the affair. They have been arrested and the dealer has confessed. The printer was paid 1,000 marks for each stamp falsely surcharged. According to Mr. Jaeger the following stamps have been counterfeited:

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will be interested in news which I have just received from Russia.

"On January 11th the postage for a registered letter from Russia was again increased and now costs 7,000,000 rubles, or 700 rubles in the currency of 1922. Previously it was 3,000,000 rubles, as you published in the January Journal.

"I believe you know that two new sets of stamps are now in circulation in Russia. They are in the currency of 1922 and, therefore, have small denominations, like the issue to commemorate the five years. of Soviet rule. One set has three stamps of small size: 10rbs blue with head of "red" workman, and 50rbs brown and 100 rbs red with head of "red" soldier in helmet. Another set was made by surcharging the imperial stamps with a five-pointed

star, (having the letters "R.S.F.S.R." in the points) and new values, 40rbs on 15kop brown and 20rbs on 70kop brown and orange.

"In the near future, I believe, we will see no more million rubles postage nor even hundred rubles, but only kopeks, as before the war, because I am advised that they are now issuing the "currency of 1923," each ruble of which is equal to 100 rubles of 1922 or to 1,000,000 rubles of all preceding years; therefore, a letter will bear stamps amounting to only 7 rubles.

"By the way, let me tell you, that set of Russian stamps chronicled in the December Journal as types A47 to A53 are counterfeits, made somewhere in Europe. I have obtained this information from a philatelic magazine published in Russia.

"Also the stamps with train, aeroplane, ship and car are for use only in Russia. The letter prepaid with these stamps, which I received some time ago and reported to you, was accepted by the mail clerk by mistake, because the stamps are for internal use only."

This letter confirms our doubts about the large labels which we chronicled in December, with reserve. Though they were sent us by a prominent Swiss dealer, we were always suspicious of them. We described them in November but no comment was made on them, so we then put them in the chronicle, hoping they would attract attention there and bring information, which they have.

Without questioning the statement that the charity stamps which show various methods of transporting the mails are restricted to internal use, we would mention that we have recently bought a number of envelopes which had brought letters from Russia. Most of them bore these charity stamps, along with other issues. In one instance the charity stamps were not cancelled, in all others they were, but that may have been done through misunder

standing of the regulations. It is stated that values were not printed on these stamps so that the Authorities might fix a price each month at which they should be sold. In this way they would be able to keep pace with the continued depreciation of the ruble.

In the Berner Briefmarhen Zeitung we find information which we reproduce for the benefit of our readers. It is known that, for some time, it has not been permitted in Russia to export or import postage stamps. The Soviet Government has recently decided to permit Russian collectors to send stamps abroad, but exclusively for exchange, their sale being strictly forbidden. Each letter may not contain more than four copies of the same stamp, and the maximum value of a shipment may not exceed 500 rubles gold (2,000 francs). Stamps may also be received from abroad under certain conditions. On each shipment sent to or received from other countries a tax is collected. This tax is 250 rubles, currency of 1922, for each shipment not exceeding a value of 500 francs according to the Yvert-Tellier catalogue. The letters are controlled and taxed in the office of the Central Committee for Aid to the Hungry (for whose benefit the said tax is collected). Special stamps have been issued for this tax. They are the Kerensky stamps of 1918 surcharged in red, 250 rubles on the 35 kopeks and 500 rubles on the 70 kopeks. These stamps are affixed to the letters and obliterated with a special cancellation, having the date and permit number written in. Letters sent into Russia, when enclosing stamps, must be enclosed in a double enevelope, the outer one addressed to the Committee for Aid to the Hungry, and the inner one to the person for whom it is intended. The second envelope will be opened by the Committee of Experts of the Aid to the Hungry, taxed, and forwarded to the addressee, after the tax has been paid.

ASSORTED JUNK!!-For Sale to Stamp Collectors

COST

OSTA RICA: A correspondent writes us: "It has been decreed that 50,000 of the common 5c stamps be marked 'COMPRE UD CAFE DE COSTA RICA,' meaning 'Buy Costa Rican coffee.' I would like to know if these stamps would be worth any more than the common un

marked ones. If so, I can supply you with some of them."

GE

ERMANY: According to L'Echo de la Timbrologie the 5pf claret of 1921 has been overprinted to advertise the third Stamp Dealers Fair, to be held at Leipzig, March 4th to 7th, 1923.

ITALY: We translate from L'Echo de la Timbrologie who, in turn, credit Il Corriere Filatelico:

"The new Minister of Posts has had the intention to abandon the issue of the stamps 'For the Propagation of the Faith' but the printing of this series was so far advanced that he revoked his decision. The stamps will be placed on sale in the early part of 1923. The same Minister has refused to authorize an advertising issue for the next Sample Fair at Milan. But he has ordered the painter Calcaquadoro to prepare a design for a stamp which shall be issued in the four colonies of Eritrea, Somalia, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, with a surtax of 5 centesimi for the benefit of the Italian Colonial Institute."

ST

T. KITTS-NEVIS: Whitfield, King & Co.'s Bulletin says that the new issue, which we chronicle in this number, is "avowedly made with the object of raising funds for providing a public park for the people of the colony." And a correspondent of Stamp Collecting quotes from The Cricketer: "It was a happy thought which prompted the people of St. Kitts to decide upon appropriately marking the anniversary of the Colony by making a really good cricket ground, the funds for which are to be raised by issuing a special tercentenary postage stamp."

We call this a disgusting misuse of the postal service, which should be one of the dignified functions of government, turning it into a money-grabbing, "drop a penny. in the hat” affair. In self-respecting communities, men who want a place to play cricket or other sports take the money from their own pockets and don't try to make their government play the part of a genteel hold-up man. And there are governments that have sufficient sense of decency that they would refuse to abet any such scheme.

SOUTH WEST AFRICA:

We quote

from a letter of our good friend Mr. R. Roberts:

"The territory of the late German West Africa is now being administered by the Union of South Africa Government.

"Sheets of the postage stamps now in use in the Union of South Africa, bearing

.

the head of His Majesty King George V, have been overprinted in English and in Dutch, each stamp alternately, 'South West Africa' and 'Zuid West Afrika.'

"The overprint is so arranged that a stamp with the English overprint is always next to a stamp with the Dutch overprint, so that it is not possible to get two stamps side by side or end to end with the same overprint.”

And this precious bi-lingual overprinting is to be applied to the regular postage stamps up to a pound face value and to full sets of postage due stamps. We hear further that the Union of South Africa is considering a new issue with each alternate row in the sheets inscribed in English or Dutch. Presumably it will be found necessary to overprint these sheets for South West Africa. What a mess!

Hitherto South West Africa seems to have gotten along very well with the stamps of the Union, which have inscriptions in both languages. If they must have distinctive stamps for themselves why not overprint both languages on the same stamp? In that part of the world the English and Dutch live side by side and we find it hard to believe that any of them who can write letters are so stupid that they cannot read so much of the other language as is found on a postage stamp. We suppose, to be quite logical, they will refuse to sell a stamp with a Dutch overprint to a man who speaks English, or to allow a Dutchman to frank a letter with a stamp inscribed in English.

To us the whole thing looks like another rotten scheme to sell to stamp collectors two stamps instead of one.

London International Stamp

Exhibition

In response to enquiries from philatelists abroad, the Executive Committee desires to make it widely known that there is no duty or tax, of any kind whatsoever, on stamps sent or brought into England, and no difficulty need be encountered by Exhibitors with the customs in bringing or sending their collections to the Exhibition.

UNNECESSARY COLONIAL ISSUES
Important Action by the Government

Just as we go to press we have received the following letter from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, which we are sure will be read by collectors with great satisfaction:

COLONIAL OFFICE
Downing Street, S.W.I.

Gentlemen,

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26 January, 1923.

I am directed by the Duke of Devonshire to refer to your letter of the 3rd January, addressed to the Crown Agents for the Colonies, a copy of which has been forwarded to this Office, and to inform you that he has already had under consideration the desirability of limiting as far as possible, new issues of Colonial postage stamps.

I am, however, to point out that in some recent instances, such as Kenya Colony, and Malta, an alteration in the status of the territory seemed to call for a new issue of stamps, while in the case of Tanganyika and Iraq, which had previously been using surcharged stamps, it was clearly desirable that a separate issue should be made.

A further source of new issues during recent years has been the introduction of paper bearing the new script watermark, and it is possible that a revision of the

colours of the different values may be required in some colonies as a result of international agreements.

His Grace has, however, instructed Governors of all Colonies and Protectorates that they should not put forward proposals for new issues of stamps unless some satisfactory reason can be adduced, and has stated that he cannot allow the prospect of revenue from sales to collectors as an argument in support of proposals for a new issue. I am, Gentlemen,

Your obedient Servant,

W. ORMSBY GORE.

We reprint the foregoing from Whitfield, King & Co.'s Bulletin. It reads well but we think we have read just such pleasant sounding promises in the past and they had no fulfilment. High officials occupy difficult positions. It is not to be thought that they would countenance shady schemes if such were frankly presented. But it will, doubtless, be difficult in the future, as in the past, to refuse the demand of a colony for a special issue of stamps, when the plea is made that it is to commemorate some important historical event, while the fact that it is really a money-making scheme is adroitly concealed.

VOTING IS STILL GOING ON

Votes for the U. S. Album are arriving in every mail.
It is very evident that such an album is wanted, but we want to
be absolutely sure of first what sort of album.

SO IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY VOTED - Vote now!
Results of Voting up to March 1st

1-The majority of voters prefer only major varieties of postals,
departments, envelopes, dues and revenues.

2-With a strong leaning toward minor varieties-coils, rotaries,
etc., of the 20th Century issues.

3-Very few for all minor varieties-most all prefer a blank
album suitable for their own needs.

4-Majority favors a loose leaf album, but the vote for a bound
album is heavy enough for us to consider putting out both.
Do Your Part to Get the Album You Want
SEND US YOUR PREFERENCE NOW

P.S.-This is not in any way an obligation to buy.-Merely an expression of
your opinion.

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