Here is a very plain-looking postage stamp. It has not been used, so has no postal cancellations, but it has been hinged to mount it in a stamp album. It is printed in one colour – red – and is actually not very well printed: note how off-centre it is, and the messy perforations – the paper is quite rough. It measures just 21 x 26 millimetres.
The text is not elaborate: “LATVIJA” is the Latvian spelling of Latvia, and “KAP. 5 KAP.” gives the denomination: 5 kapeika (the currency there was 100 kapeikas = 1 rublis).
The stamp is easily identified from the Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World (Simplified) catalogue as number #2 in the Latvia. It was issued in 1918, which is a very significant date in Latvian history, because Latvia had been part of the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution 1917. In November 1918, the newly independent country of Latvia was proclaimed.
The design is distinctive, with a depiction of a rising sun with what looks like three ears of corn bound by some kind of circlet. The rising sun was later adopted on the new arms of Latvia in 1921.
But the real story of this stamp is revealed when you look at the back …
It is printed on the back of a map! During the First World War, the region which became the country of Latvia had been devastated. Resources of all kinds were in short supply. There was no good quality paper available for printing stamps for the new nation, but when the German army finally withdrew they abandoned large stocks of war maps. So these were re-purposed to print the first stamp issue of Latvia, including our little 106-year-old 5 kepeika definitive.
And if you are lucky, it is possible to identify the place depicted on the WWI map. Here there are a few useful clues:
- At the top the words “östl. L.v.Ferro”, which was unfamiliar to me. The abbreviation is for “Östliche Länge von Ferro” (= Easterly longitude from Ferro) and was the reference meridian used in German and mid-European map-making. This prime meridian was 20° West of Paris (or 17° 39ʹ 46.02ʺ West of the Greenwich Meridian) and passes close to the Island of Ferro, now better known as El Hierro in the Canary Islands. A part of a degree symbol can be seen at the left hand edge of the stamp, but unfortunately no numbers are visible.
- Across the top third is the symbol for a railway and the text “Bhf.”, the German abbreviation for “Bahnhof” = railway station
- A number “50” near the bottom, which is probably just a contour label.
- A place name “Niewieża”, which includes the letter “ż” which does not occur in the Latvian alphabet, but is the letter “żet” in Polish.
So where is it? The orientation of the name “Niewieża” suggests that it is associated with the river feature which flows across the map fragment towards the south-east corner. This is the Polish name for a river, which flows for 209 km entirely within Lithuania. It is called the “Nevežis” in Lithuanian. However I have so far been unable to pinpoint this location, with the distinctive crossroads and railway station.
One plain-looking stamp, but with a fascinating story to tell!
One response to “More than meets the eye…”
The river rises in marshes and follows a sort of fish-hook shaped course NW, W and S until it meets the bigger River Nemunas at Kaunas. The river passes through two towns with railways, but at Kedainai both river and railway are running roughly north to south. At Panevezys both river and railway run roughly east to west, and the railway station is 2km out of town to the NW, as on the map. The pattern of roads and river is similar too. I think the map fragment shows the north-western outskirts of Panevezys.