Articles

Need in establishing the city post office in Tiphlis matured earlier – since 1845 the Tiphlis Province Post Service failed to timely handle the flow of post correspondence from the population of Tiphlis and its neighborhoods.
In March 1848 the Tiphlis City Post Office was opened, and in the very beginning of its operation its staff consisted of only three employees: sorter, supervisor and postman. According to the rules approved by the Governor, that city post office accepted only private correspondence (non-registered letters, insurance and money support letters). All state correspondence as well as foreign and money support letters over 1500 silver rubles were still accepted by the province post service.
Prior to stamps appearance payment for post correspondence was taken using postmarked envelopes fabricated of an ordinary paper without watermarks with postmarks in 1,2,3,4 and 5 lots. And one-kopeck fee for envelope cost was introduced as additional to the price indicated on the postmark. By the way Tiphlis postmarked envelopes also appeared a little earlier than national ones: almost in parallel with Tiphlis envelopes approval by the Caucasus Governor M.S. Vorontsov (January 24, 1848), Nicolas I (January 26) approved the State Council proposal on issuing national envelopes. However, life of those Tiphlis envelopes was rather short and shortly after they were replaced with All-Russian ones.
Appearance of the Tiphlis Unique – famous and mysterious stamp – is associated with the name of prominent figure, commander and reformer A.N. Baryatinsky. In 1856 A.N. Baryatinsky was appointed the Caucasus Governor. Duke Baryatinsky had particular relations with Emperor Alexander II. In 1836 after medical treatment after battle wound was appointed to escort the Crown Prince. Three years of travel with him in the Western Europe created very close relations between them and gave birth to multi-year friendship with future Emperor Alexander II.
And perhaps that friendship later allowed the Duke to pursue vigorous reforms in the Caucasus without turn back on Petersburg because except ample authorities and unlimited power of the czar deputy in the region Baryatinsky also had firm belief in support by the monarch himself. The duke activities especially in the initial period of his governing in the Caucasus was rather fruitful, and when it came to reform the post service, the Rules for City Post in Tiphlis and Home Delivery of Journals and Newspapers were prepared within a short period of time and on June 14, 1857 those rules were approved by the Governor. And since June 20 inside the city and since June 15 between Tiphlis and Kodzhorami (summer residence of the Caucasus Governor) the city post service was put into operation and at the same time special postage stamps, fabricated in the Governor printing office, were introduced into practical use.
Those first postage stamps cost 6 kopecks and for mailing throughout the city area it was necessary to stick one stamp, and for mailing to Kodzhory – three kopecks. At that time those postage stamps were called just “paper postmarked stamps with paper seal properties”,
As it was already mentioned above the stamp was issued in very short period of time and of course the organizers didn’t have enough time for careful development of the drawing. Therefore most probably for Tiphlis stamps their designers used the subject of postmark of state-wide and city-wide (for Saint-Petersburg and Moscow) envelopes. However if inside the circle of postmark of state-wide there was the National Emblem of Russia, on the stamps of Tiphlis City Post Office – Emblem of the Tiphlis Province. Image on that emblem is as follows: shield is divided into two parts, in the top part in the left side one can see the Ararat Mountain with Noah's Ark on its peak, in the right side – the Black Sea, in the bottom part – Mercury’s baton as a symbol of global trade, in the middle of large shield there is one more shield of smaller sizes with the image of St. Great Martyr George Victorious (since ancient times – patron of the Georgians); on its top the main shield is covered by the wings of Emperor crowned eagle. Signs of the post office (two intersecting post horns) on the Tiphlis stamps are located in the corners between the internal square frame and the circle, and on the envelopes – inside the circle under the emblem.
Inscription on the stamp: «ТИФЛИС:» [Tiphlis], «ГОРОДС:» [City], «ПОЧТА:»[ Post Office], «6 коп:» [ 6 kop] is located between the outer and inner frames, whereas similar text on the envelopes’ postmark is placed inside the inner ring, surrounding the inner circle.
According to the sketch the engraver made the cliché of which the governor printing-house in-relief printed colorless stamps with the image of figure described above, of 22x22 mm size without perforation. Paper for stamps was yellow-white 0.2mm thick. Glue was of the same color. Tiphlis stamps were printed in stripes - 5 stripes on a paper sheet – during that times stamps could not be printed on large sheets due to lack of powerful printing presses for in-relief print in Russia.
Particularly relief is one of remarkable features of the Tiphlis stamp. Firstly it is the very first mark of payment for post services in the world made with embossing technology. And the main purpose of unusual image is to prevent falsification of “postmark stamp”, since if it is comparatively easy to make a colored imprint, in-relief printing is much more complex.
So since June 20, 1857 Tiphlis postage stamps were used for payment for the city letters.
The Post Department Circular of December 10, 1857 introduced the national postage stamps of Russia into postal circulation in the Caucasus and Transcaucasian Territory since March 1, 1858 and since that time Tiphlis residents began to use them for payment for non-resident and resident letters. However introduction of national postage stamps of Russia didn’t impede circulation of Tiphlis city stamps at all. In the very beginning of circulation of national postage stamps of Russia at the Transcaucasian Territory on March 20, 1858 the Tiphlis Province Office placed its announcement in the “Kavkaz” newspaper, where it notified Tiphlis residents that the letters addressed by them to their fellow countrymen-Tiphlisians but packed not in envelopes with glued specially approved Tiphlis postage stamps but in stamped envelopes or in envelopes with glued national postage stamps of Russia would not be delivered to addressees and would be returned back to senders…
On July 1864 the national postage stamps for payment for abroad correspondence of 1, 3 and 5 kopeck tenor were issued. Those stamps also provided full opportunity to pay for city correspondence. Most probably only the issue of postage stamps dated 1864 was transition to replacement of the Tiphlis stamps. The Post Office could not make a decision to eliminate all Tiphlis stamps because it could cause damage and therefore, most probably, Tiphlis stamps circulated up to 1865-1866. Why in spite of such a long circulation period (Tiphlis city stamps circulated for 7-8 years) to date one a few specimens of those stamps survived ? Publications on the Tiphlis Unique mostly mention only three postage stamps later found in collection of the famous Russian collector A.K. Faberge.
Perhaps, the main reason of such rarity of Tiphlis stamp is that during the period of its appearance and circulation there were no philately collectors in the Transcaucasus and none of Tiphlis residents had an idea to keep the stamps which in average resident’s opinion didn’t have any art value – “paper stamps with seal properties”. Tiphlis stamp circulation had regional character, its print run was small, and it was used rather short period of time – due to all those factors very soon the Tiphlis postage stamp was forgotten and actually disappeared from the collectors’ field of view.
But as it was precisely noticed many years ago rarities were unique not only in terms of number of survived specimens but also have unique sometimes absolutely fantastic fate. Interest to the Tiphlis stamp of 1857 originated after publications of outstanding collector and prominent expert in Russian philately K.K. Schmidt. Schmidt’s collection was great and unique. Indeed the hearsays that many time ago there was post office in Tiphlis and one unique city stamp circulated there were active since the 80s of XIX century but unfortunately no specimen of that stamp survived…
K.K. Schmidt tried to make a description of that mysterious stamp but alas it also was incorrect because nobody saw that postage stamp. Search of that stamp was complicated because in the very beginning of imperialistic war in the Caucasus faced with the threat of Tiphlis attack by Turkish army headed by Iskhan-Pashi luxuriant archives of civil and military ascertainments were transported from Tiphlis to Batum, Vladikavkaz and Stavropol. Later some of those archives were returned to Tiphlis and almost all of them were burnt or used as wrap. But nevertheless many of survived documents including Kavkaz Calendar of 1858 where the Rules for city post in Tiphlis and home delivery of journals and newspapers were published pointed on the Tiphlis stamps existence.
Publications made by K.K. Schmidt and some other Russian researchers in the Russian and foreign philatelic press generated great response and discussions in the world philatelic community.
And just on the eve of the World War I the fog that wrapped Tiphlis stamp for many years finally disappeared thanks to fortunate find of three specimens of that postage stamp. All the circumstances of that find give a right to assume ruling out any potential falsification or juggling.
Tiphlis stamp became a specimen of K.K.Schmidt’s collection in 1913.
Then there was an epoch of robbery: home things were ransacked, library was taken to pieces, and during revisions in banks and during safe checks numismatics (unique collection of old Russian coins) was immediately confiscated. “Only lovers of books on philately were not found”, - later wrote K.K. Schmidt with bitterness…
Later K.K. Schmidt managed to deliver his collection of stamps to Germany. Many specimens of that collection were transported from Russia in almost smuggling way. In 1930 Tiphlis Unique was exhibited at the “Iposta” philately exhibition in Berlin.
After that the trail of stamp owned by K.K. Schmidt is lost. That stamp was not registered in the collection gifted to the Berlin Post Museum in 1933. In 1943 in order to save from bombings the most famous collections that contained world-famous rarities were evacuated to the south in mines near Aceleben and from there to the U.S. occupation zone… Later according to inaccurate data at some world auctions there were mentions on Tiphlis stamp, but accurate data about it is not available.
There was one more track in the history of Tiphlis Unique that was associated with known historic person – A.K. Faberge.
A.K. Faberge was accustomed to stamps collecting by German-Russian philatelist of St. Petersburg Frederick Breitfuss, who in early XIX century was considered one of the prominent philatelists in Europe.
Once by a fluke Faberge became the owner of great number of postage stamps of early XIX century. Because of leaving for new office one large-scale Petersburg enterprise which had broad-scale business correspondence all over the world decided to get rid of old documentation. It is difficult to imagine what treasures were found by him in that mess of unneeded papers.
Faberge’s collection was confiscated in 1918 and A.K. himself was sent to concentration camp. A.K. spent more than one year in the camp, where he was three times brought to shooting down as “bourgeois contra”. All Faberge’s property was confiscated. Tortures and hunger greatly weakened A.K. state of health. But in late 1920 Faberge, who was one of the five best gemologists in the country, for all that became needed to new power, and deputy head of people’s commissar of finances A.M.Krasnoschekov personally convicted Faberge and some Petersburg experts to make a description of the tsar jewelry. Faberge agreed to perform that work in exchange on confiscated apartment and collections of antiques and postage stamps.
Later on he managed to deliver his collections to Finland where Faberge’s family immigrated.
Being abroad A.K. was forced to sell his collection of postage stamps in pieces in order to keep his house and family.
During that pre-war period the Faberge collection already gathered all three known specimens of postage stamp of the Tiphlis city post office. A.K acquired two specimens of the Tiphlis stamp before 1917. The best one was acquired from Agar Romyanovich Kirchner, the second – from V.Verhmeister. Later in 1920s in connection with sell-out of Ferrari collection he managed to buy the third specimen. Parts of A.K. collection including all three Tiphlis stamps were exhibited at the very first WIPA exhibition in 1933 in Austria. All specimens that were presented at that exhibition were pawned just after the exhibition and transported to London, where they were stored till the outbreak of World War II. (Of course! We they saw rarity postage stamps of old-Italian states, new South Wales, Argentina, Norway and many others British collectors offered A.K. 18 000 pound sterling for the postage stamps that should be stored in London).
And just after the outbreak of World War II when any business relations between states became impossible the British required to redeem pledged collections… Faberge didn’t find enough money to redeem his collections and they were sold at the Harmer Auction in November 1939. At that auction all three Tiphlis postage stamps were sold for trifling sums: first was sold for 28 sterling – to one of collectors, who back in 1933 readily gave a loan against the collections. To all appearances that specimen is still in Switzerland (according to our information, the postage stamp was acquired by Zbignev Mikulsky – known Swiss collector, expert on Russian postage stamps).
Second - in terms of intactness degree – specimen was acquired by Sh. Lavrov for 25 sterling for
Ch.Stibbe’s collection, and when that collection was sold in 1957 it was bought by P.V.Davidson
just for 180 sterling. Afterwards that stamp passed to R.W.Baighman’s collection and on March 24, 1971 during realization at the auction held by Zigel company in New York it was sold for $ 7500.00 US. Then it was mentioned in connection with N.D.Epstein auction of October 15, 1985 but unfortunately the details are unknown (According to our estimates: being in the onset of Norman Epstein collection in 1985 at the Harmer auction in New York the Tiphlis postage stamp found new owner. Now for $9000.00 US (at $7500.00 US starting price). Zbignev Mikulski also enriched his collection with that postage stamp).
Third specimen – the weakest in terms of intactness- was mentioned for the last time on February 19, 1958. During sell-out of H.C.Goss collection it was bought for 175 sterling. Afterwards its track was lost.
Then that specimen also passed to collection of Z.Mikulski – recognized expert in Russian philately. Just thanks to Z. Mikulski the Tiphlis postage stamps again saw the light of the day at the international philatelic exhibitions.
In Russia they were shown for the first time at the Moscow-97 International Philately Exhibition and there they took up the places in the Class of Honor – in the same place where the rarity postage stamps of the world and collections of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth-II and Monaco Duke Renie III were exhibited.
And just in 1998 two best specimens of A. Faberge collection again change their owner – Zbignev Mikulski sold them to new owner. But it is a different story partially with detective and political trace. Perhaps we’ll tell about it another time.
(More detailed information on the fate of Tiphlis postage stamp is available in publication of V.Gitin “Tiphlis Unique” which summary it presented to Your attention in that article).