a short Walk with Pavlov and his dogs...

New Entries

Today I will show another group of stamps from Russia...the stamps are from the period of 1948/1950 , completed with some small definitive stamps from 1966 and 1988...it will be a post without many to say ,because the stamps are [Photo] printed (exception made for the 1988 stamps...) and all of you know that I feel somehow 'disarmed' (speechless) in front of them, without many to say, except to talk a little about their design, always nice and appealing...well ,lets start...

As you already know , when I am working with [Photo] stamps ,I have to use a smaller definition of the scans, to protect the final result, with more detailed images .. with these stamps . the greater the definition, smaller is the level of detail....so I think that 300ppp are the best definition to use with these stamps...this is a beautiful war series , that show us images of the 4 branches of the Soviet Army...

1948 "30th Anniversary of the Soviet Defence Forces" (4) [Des (Ye. Sokolov)][Photo] Sc(1205,...,1208)

A series of landscapes commemorating the Crimea and Caucasus regions....for me, and I think most of you have a different opinion, Russian stamps started poorly if we compare them with other countries, but from the 30's until the 70's they reached enormous quality and richness...this period for me , from the 30's to the 50's is the best ,but it could be much better if the printing options were others...   

1948 "Views of Crimea and Caucasus" (8) [Des (V. Andreev)][Photo] Sc(1310,...,1317)

A series celebrating the increasing Women's role in Russian society... the series has 7 stamps, but only 6 are presented because the other one (identical to the 40k but with value 2r) was already in the collection...the designs are work of Vasili Vasilievich Zavyalov, one of the best Russian stamp Designers, with work from the 30's to the late 60's..only the 50k stamp is work of other Artist...

1949 "International Women's Day" (7) [Des (V. Savyalov)(L. Golovanov 50k)][Photo] Sc(1334,...,1339)

two stamps honoring Ivan Pavlov, a Great Scientist from Russia...

now let us focus for some moments the love/hate response..,here it is something that either you love or hate ..( !!why??!!..) ..there is no "middle ground".. the Band's name is "Pavlov's Dog" ...

1949 "Birth Centenary of I.P. Pavlov(Scientist)" (2) [Des (V. Klimashin)][Photo] Sc(1390,1391)

Culture as we know was something very important in Russian society, so here we have a series celebrating the foundation of a theater in Moscow... 

1949 "125th Anniversary of the Malyi Theater,Moscow" (3) [Des (Ye. Bulanova)][Photo] Sc(1400,...,1402)

A very nice Sport series, with some of the favorite sports of the Russians in those days...I just want to highlight the last stamp,representing something like "Hunting in the Ice"..it is something that represents very well the the effects of time in our mentalities..what was then something current and absolutely normal is now in the field of the most incorrect things we can do... to hunt endangered species like most of the animals of the ice...

1949 "National sports" (5) [Des (V. Zavyalov)][Photo] Sc(1415,...,1419)

1950 "25th Anniversary of Uzbek S.S.R." (6) [Des (V. Andreev)][Photo] Sc(1429,...,1434)

These are some blocks of 4 from the definitive series of 66...I think that this series doen't have anything special, well the opposite of the 61 series, a spectacular one (in my opinion...)..I already had all these stamps in the collection but not in this format,so now is a good opportunity to show them and allow them to enter the collection...I will not present the codes, but I must highlight that this is another good work of Savyalov.....

Among the many material I've got from the 70's and 80's ,I found this beautiful [Recess] series...the designs are very nice and the detail is taken to another higher level...of course in this case I have used 600ppp scans and the images are much better than all the others....it is another series of small definitive stamps , this time from 1988... very well accomplished stamps...
1988 "Standart Issue" (12) [Des (V. koval)][Recess] Sc(5723,...,5726,5728,...,5732)

This time it was a short post ,but I think the stamps I presented were good...next time ,another post with Spanish stamps... Until then,

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the Old and the New

New Entries

I decided to continue with the presentation of some US stamps, but this time mixed with some other new entries...

Two beautiful stamps from Greece, representing "The Tragedy of War"... there You can see a soldier dying in battle and a Feminine figure, that I think represents "Mother Greece", carrying out  the task of taking care of the young Orphan and his mother... it is also significant that the figure presents a large Cross in her chest, and this could represent the role of the Orthodox Church both in the state and in the Social cohesion of the Country... it is a series from 1914 and the stamps present a very good and clear [Litho] printing.... 

1914 "National Welfare Fund" (2) [Litho (Aspiotis Bros)] Sc(RA1,RA2)

As we know Geopolitics of the Balkans region is very complex, full of wars , disputes and Political and Religious Instability until our days ... all the countries of this region had invasion stamps, stamps of the invader, etc, and these stamps in particular are from a region that in our days belongs to Albania...Historically North Epirus  was heavily populated by Greek people and was under Greek control from 1912 to 1914...History is something that never stops and the events of 1914 in that  region led to the uprising of the Greek Population of North Epirus, who became an Autonomous Region in November 1914...curiously ,this series is exactly from that time and reflects all these changes that were taking place...the first two stamp issued (10l and 25l) have the Label "Epirus" and all the other 6 values have  a different label saying "Autonomous Epirus"...I only have 3 stamps of the 8 available, but fortunately we can see this difference... These are undoubtedly stamps full of history and to a better comprehension of all that was happening , I can advertise a little and say to you that if you collect Greek stamps You should have the 3 volume Greece Catalog of Karamitsos ... it is one of the best Catalogs I have and all these events are explained with great detail and clarity....

I could not find the Scott codes for "North Epirus" (they are there, just don't know where..) ,so I don't present them...

    1914 "Infantrymen" (8) [Litho (Aspiotis Bros,Corfu)] 

What can I say about these engraved series from Russia..??."I Love them..!!" .. the subject is a little over used during the years,but it is a comprehensible effort to maintain the cohesion of the complex map of what was Russia in those days..these stamps belong to the 1961 2nd and 1962 3rd series of  the Main series "Capitals of Autonomous Republics"... they were all designed by N. Krugov, but Engraved by several different engravers....

1961 "Capitals of Autonomous Republics 2nd Series" (7) [Des (N. Krugov)][Engr (I.Mokrousov 1)(V.Smirnov 2,5)(I. Sapronov 3)(T.Nikitina 4)][Recess] 

Well,let us start to show the US stamps I promised in the beginning of the post... I like very much these portrait series, and even more when they are designed by several Artists...these are stamps from the "Great Americans" series from 1980/1985... You don't have to be a US collector to know that there were across time , several President Issues, some of them really precious stamps, not only Artistically but also Economically..these series we are now talking about are basically the some thing but with people that one way or another distinguished  themselves during their life... 

there are various aspects we should note in this series... some of the values have perforation 11 and others 10.5x11... it is possible that some stamps appear without "tagging" , but this aspect is clearly detailed in all catalogs...the complete series has 26 stamps,so You know that 5 of them are still missing (I think that now that the classification is done, I will end these two series next month...)

1980/1985 "Great Americans" (26) [Des (Bernie Fuchs 1)(Bert Silverman 2)(Ward Brackett 3,12,20)(Richard Sparks 4,7,8,17)(Paul Calle 5)(Dennis Lyall 6,14)(Robert Anderson 9)(Brad Holland 10)(Bradbury Thompson 11)(Jim Sharpe 13)(Christopher Calle 15,16,18,21)(Roy H. Anderson 19)][Recess] 

stamps from the 1986/1994 "Great Americans" series...

1986/1994 "Great Americans" (28) [Des (Ron Adair 1,2)(Christopher Calle 3,4,5,11,12)(Juan Maldonado 6)(Robert Anderson 7,15)(Jack Rosenthal 8)(Dennis Lyall 9)(Richard Sparks 10)(Bradbury Thompson 13)(John Berkey 14)(Tomm Broad 17)(Arthur Lidov 18)][Recess] 

Great, Great engraving....

1973 "Harry Truman Issue" (1) [Design (Bradbury Thompson)][Recess] Sc(1499)

Great Art work to represent a Great Man...

1979 "Albert Einstein Issue" (1) [Des (Bradbury Thompson)][Recess] Sc(1774)

These are stamps of individual series, so they do not belong to the same series.. I show them together because I think they are intimately related... 

The place of "old People" is with their families and not in places prepared to segregate them..We all must live together..! We all have a place in life, even in old Age....

1979 "International Year of the Child" (1) [ Des (Paul Calle)][Recess] Sc(1772)

1982 "Aging Together" (1) [Des (Paul Calle)][Recess] Sc(2011)

Next time I'll have stamps from Venezuela...

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Five Series

New Entries

I have five series to show you today... the first two are from Russia and the others from Turkey...

This is a beautiful series from Russia and as You can easily see the topic are the Sports and the Olympics of 1960...Sports stamps are seen as one of the strong points of the USSR and Satellite Countries Philately's . The sport activity was strongly financed and promoted by a state eager of International Recognition... as we all know Sports are seen as a  sign of development , so we cannot find surprising the fact of so much investment in the Sport Activity when USSR had a so strong adversary as the United States... 

The specialization in the stamp Designing in those days , led to the appearance of designers that only worked with Sport stamps, like in Czechoslovakia , Romania and other Eastern countries... the result was the issue of some spectacular series of this topic... I think this one is very well designed , but as in many other cases should be engraved and  [Recess] printed...

1960 "XVII Olympic Games" (10) [Des (Vasili Zavyalov (5k,20k,40 k Blue, 60k)(A. Zavyalov others)][Litho] Sc(2359,...,2368)

I deliberately inverted the usual chronological order just to present first a non engraved series and now a engraved and [Recess] printed series... I think that this is a great series with a very good engraving and excellent design... Once more , I think it is time for us ,collectors, to say or do something about the current status of the stamps that are offered for us to collect in our days.. We must react , because future collectors ( those who will collect today's stamps ) will buy and waste their money in a very dubious product... MOST PART OF THE STAMPS THAT ARE PRODUCED TODAY HAVE NO QUALITY, NO MEANING, NO ARTISTS (DESIGNERS AND ENGRAVERS..) AND ARE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS...IT IS A SHAME !!!!

these stamps are still good stamps and the 70's and 80's were still good years for Philately , but from the middle of the 90's until now we have seeing the decay of all we like and value most... if we were talking of Wines we would now be drinking VINEGAR.!!

Unfortunately , I don't know who is the Engraver but he seems to be , for me , the only one that worked in this series, because the engraving is similar in all the vignettes ...(I could be wrong..!!!) .. Please see stamp by stamp... they are beautiful !!!

1958 "Capitals of Soviet Republics" (15) [Des (S. Pomansky)][Recess] Sc(2120,...,2134)

[ I have received a comment of Anton D, and it says that the Artists (both painters and engravers) S. Pomansky, S. Alferov, L. Mayorov, Mikheev, I. Mokrousov, T. Nikitina I. Sapronov, and V. Smirnov all worked in this series... it is difficult for me right now to distinguish the painters and the engravers, but I left here this info ... it seems that I was wrong..!. I want to thank Anton D. for this very useful comment ...] [Updated 27/09/2015 12:05]

[ Just now, I received another comment with the specification of the engravers work.. As you have noticed , each stamp represents a Capital city and " Почтовые марки/ Postage stamps " gave me the correct relation of the stamps where each engraver have worked... here it is... :
S.Aferov (Москва./Moscow.), 
L.Mayorova (Киев./Kiev.,Минск./Minsk.,Ереван./Yerevan.),
N.Mikheyev (Кишинев./Kishinev.,Ашхабад./Ashkhabad.),
I.Mokrousov (Тбилиси./Tbilisi.,Фрунзе./Frunze.), 
T.Nikitina (Москва./Moscow.,Алма-Ата./Alma-Ata.,Сталинабад./Stalinabad.),
I.Sapronov (Баку./Baku.,Вильнюс./Vilnius.,Рига./Riga.) and V.Smirnov (Ташкент./Tashkent). ] [ Updated 01/10/2015 17:47]

TURKEY

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to start now this section of the post dedicated to Turkey stamps, I have another one of the countless stamps representing President  Kemal Ataturk... 

This is a small series , with just two stamps, with the particularity of being [Litho] printed with the Center portrait Embossed.. I think the Emboss effect could have been more strengthened (it is clearly sensed by our fingers but it should be more enhanced to the view ).. the SS presents us a non perforated stamp...

1959 "Kemal Ataturk" (1+SS) [Litho (State Printing works, Berlin)] Sc(1472,1472a)

This is a series commemorating a Philatelic Meeting in Istanbul.. the stamps are very well printed, and two FDC's are also presented..several famous stamps from early days are represented together with famous sights or buildings from Turkey...
1963 "Istanbul International Stamp Exhibition" (5) [Litho (APA Ofset Basimevi, Istambul)] Sc(1596,...,1600)

This last series is a commemoration of the Issue of the first Turkish Postage stamps... As we know we were at the Ottoman Days , and the stamps represent the Sultan's Tughra ... in the case of these first stamps issued in 1863 we are talking of  Sultan Abdul Aziz (1861/1876) ... these stamps are [photo] printed reproductions of that early issue , and like in the above series, there is also a FDC and two SS , one with Postmark and other without...  

1963 "Centenary of First Turkish Postage Stamps" (4) [Photo (Tifdruk Matbaacilik Sanayii A.S., Istambul)] Sc(1560,...,1563)]

I hope you like this small post, with my personal emphasis in the 2nd series from Russia with it's beautiful Designs and Good engraving...

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