I purchased these covers recently, and when they arrived I wondered if they are genuine, due to the fact that they were in such excellent shape, and that the frankings are very unusual, I think. What are the opinions of those more familiar with this area? Are the meter-like impressions genuine?

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roy

re: Suspect Ukraine Covers

I had a few hundred of these a few years ago and was told by experts in the field that they were mostly manufactured items and bogus.

I did not do any follow-up research.

Roy

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re: Suspect Ukraine Covers

I collect a lot of this material. I've looked at the Ukraine catalog and I guess the only problem I have with it is the admission by the author that it is difficult to know what is legit or not because stamps were permitted if requested by 1) The Central Postal Authority in Kiev, 2) Local Postmasters who ran out of issued postage from the Central Postal Authority, 3) Issues requested by local Stamp Clubs that prevailed upon a local Postmaster to create issued which were sold in their entirety to the stamp club, and 4) Issues for which there simply isn't enough information one way or the other. In other words, the catalog is a best effort but not by any means complete. One thing I can tell you that is pretty reliable. If the Ukraine stamp (1991-1995) is overprinted on obsolete Soviet Postage then it is either stamp-club inspired (such as the Donetsk set with the crossed hammers overprint) or is bogus (ie. the sets that have a continuous scenic overprint such as 5 different birds on a strip of 5 stamps). The ones shown so far on this thread are genuine. I hope this helps.

Dave

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re: Suspect Ukraine Covers

Hi again. Sure. Ukraine is probably the one former-USSR republic where there actually is some question about what is and is not genuine. Here is another example. Moldova did issue a few sets overprinted on former USSR postage. Then, of course, some postal officials had to get greedy and place the Moldovan Cities handstamps - these were handstamped on both postal cards and postal stationery to celebrate Moldova's cities - on obsolete Soviet Postage and then sell them to stamp dealers. My understanding is that the perpetrators were sentenced to prison. There are many varieties of these labels representing many cities. While they are Cinderellas to be sure...some Russian Republics such as Rostov issued only 1 set of temporary stamps printed on brown paper and these are genuine. St. Petersburg is another example. While they did issue a couple sets of what are apparently semi-postals on on obsolete soviet postage...most of their legitimate issues were printed on thin cardboard with handstamped overprints. I hope this helps.

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