Ukraine's rarest stamps - Part 1

Ukrainian philatelists can be justifiably proud of the fact that two stamp issues from Ukraine’s early 20th century period of independence (1917-1920) are today recognized as some of the rarest in the world. This article will describe these extraordinarily precious pieces of paper: the first stamps are from Western Ukraine and the second from Ukraine proper.

One of the Western Ukrainian stamps was displayed at a prestigious exhibition named Monacophil in 2002. Organized under the patronage of Prince Ranier III of Monaco, the almost five-week-long event (November 29 to December 31, 2002) featured a Rarest of the Rare display of stamps and covers exhibited by 100 members of Le Club de Monte-Carlo.

[singlepic=346,200,,,left]Shown prominently among these world philatelic gems was the Western Ukraine issue, which is basically a 10-kronen, violet-gray Austro-Hungarian military field post stamp from 1917. What makes this stamp more unusual, however, is the fact that it is overprinted across the top with Cyrillic text that states: "Poshta Ukr.[ainian] N.[ational]Rep.[ublic]." Along the bottom, a "hryvni"1 designation written in Ukrainian indicates a revaluation from the original kroner.

Historical background

Even though the above-described stamp was issued in Stanyslaviv2 in Western Ukraine — which had seceded from Austria-Hungary in the fall of 1918 - the inscription refers to the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR, eastern or Greater Ukraine) because in January of 1919 the two Ukrainian halves ostensibly were merged. In actuality, the "union" took place only on paper, while the two parts of Ukraine battled separate foes: the UNR engaged the Bolsheviks in the east, while the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR) contended with the Poles, who sought to add all of eastern GaliciaWestern Ukraine) to their newly established state. (

The ZUNR was declared in Lviv on November 1, 1918, and it was here that Westem Ukraine’s first four stamps were produced a few weeks later. Fortune turned against the Ukrainians, however, and the ZUNR government and troops were forced to evacuate the city during the night of November 21-22, 1918. The government first moved to Temopil, but subsequently took up a more permanent seat in Stanyslaviv on January 2, 1919. Sporadic fighting continued throughout the first half of 1919 until the Western Ukrainian units were driven into eastern Ukraine (mid-July) and the ZUNR effectively ceased to exist.

Although further ZUNR stamps had been created in Kolomyia in December 1918 and January 1919, by far the largest number of Western Ukrainian stamps was completed in Stanyslaviv during March to May of 1919 - in four separate issues. The above-mentioned Western Ukraine stamp was part of the second issue in which 47 different types of stamps were produced by overprinting remainders of various Austrian postage stamps.

The second issue stamps

The story behind the creation of the second Stanyslaviv issue is an interesting one and will be related below. Initially, however, I need to briefly mention that a first Stanyslaviv issue was released on March 18, 1919. It consisted of 20 different Austrian postage stamps overprinted with an inscription very similar to the one previously described.

At about the same time these stamps first made their appearance at the Stanyslaviv post office, a young student by the name of Eisenberg, a resident of Pidvolochyska (some 130 kilometers northeast of Stanyslaviv) sold a considerable portion of his property for 1,000 kronen (hryvni), in order to raise funds for a journey to Austria. However, he was afraid to take all this money with him on the trip, for it could be confiscated at various border crossings or military checkpoints. He had heard about the new Western Ukrainian stamps that had recently been issued, so on March 26 he purchased a large amount of the over-printed Austrian stamps with the intention of getting them across to Austria and exchanging them for Austrian currency. He was eventually successful in carrying out his plan.

Eisenberg showed his Western Ukraine stamps to various Vienna stamp dealers when he arrived, but most were skeptical since they knew nothing about these new issues. However, the well-known stamp expert and dealer, Karl Korner, did take up the offer and purchased Eisenberg’s entire stock.

Continued fighting had made communication difficult between the Austrian capital city and its former province of Galicia, but to Komer, the student’s story of the stamps being prepared in Stanyslaviv rang true. The dealer knew that Lviv had fallen to the Poles and that Western Ukrainian stamps could not have been made there; it made sense that a Western Ukrainian government would continue postal operations from its new seat. Korner arranged to send Eisenberg back to Stanyslaviv with instructions to buy more stamps and to obtain documentation from the post office there about just what types of stamps were overprinted and in what quantities.

[singlepic=347,400,,,center]Eisenberg returned to Stanyslaviv by the beginning of May and on May 4 began to buy up stamps in accordance with Korner’s directives. He ended up purchasing most of what was left of the first issue, because when an official record was drawn up on May 7, only five stamp values of the 20 initially produced could still be affixed (see the first two rows on the left side of the document). This large, oversized authenticating sheet is called the Ekonomat Document, because it was personally signed by Stefan Poburennyi, head of the ZUNR Ekonomat3 in Stanyslaviv. This certificate was the validation that Korner sought to prove the legitimacy of the Stanyslaviv stamps.

The second Stanyslaviv Issue was created on May 5, 1919, the day after Eisenberg depleted the supplies of stamps at the Stanyslaviv post office. The new postage stamps were fabricated by overprinting most any types of Austrian stamps that were still at hand. These remainders were mostly unusual stamps - postage due values from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kaiser Karl Fondsmarken (charity stamps) and Austro-Hungarian field post stamps - and in some cases only a few copies were available.

Valuation

[singlepic=345,200,,,left]Indeed, for the highest-value, 10-kronen stamp, only two Austrian stamps were overprinted and one of these was affixed to the Ekonomat Document. It is the other, unused (mint) stamp that was displayed as one of the Rarest of the Rare in the world today and that was exhibited at Monacophil. This stamp was recently put up at the Corinphila Auction in Switzerland and went for the closing price of 42,000 Swiss francs or about $32,300.

[singlepic=344,200,,,left]Nonetheless, the other stamp is not far behind in value. It appears "used" or "cancelled" because of the circular Ekonomat mark that was applied to it and to the other stamps on the document. This "used" specimen was removed from the Ekonomat Document some time in the past and last year also appeared at a Corinphila Auction. The starting bid price at that time was 30,000 Swiss francs (the same as this year’s auction), but I was unable to learn what the final hammer price was.

Epilogue

Karl Korner eventually did quite well selling his Western Ukrainian materials. Interestingly, once other dealers learned that he had sent an agent (Eisenberg) to Stanyslaviv to obtain more materials, several of them also traveled to the city and purchased items for their stock. lt is thanks to these dealers and the interest they took in this short-lived country’s postal emissions that we have secured many of the Western Ukrainian stamps and covers that still remain today. Had no one else taken an interest in what went on at the Stanyslaviv post office in early 1919, we may well have lost these philatelic witnesses to the existence of the Western Ukrainian state.

Despite what was able to be saved before the ZUNR fell in 1919, many Western Ukrainian stamps are still among the priciest in Ukrainian philately. The quantities preserved are in many cases far smaller than for stamps from eastern Ukraine. Nonetheless, the other very rare Ukrainian stamps that will be described are an emission of the UNR.

1. The overprint is misspelled; it should read "hryven" - the genitive plural of the word "hryvnia."

2. This city, the second largest in Western Ukraine, is today known as Ivano-Frankivsk.

3. The Ekonomat was the Western Ukrainian department created in April 1919 to oversee economic matters in the nascent state. One of its first tasks was the reorganization of the postal administration.

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