Rare Stamps & Postal History of the World
July 11-12, 2023
Cherrystone's Summer Auction will be take place July 10-11, 2023. There are numerous highlights, including United States, with an intact "Roosevelt Album", a collection of Crash & Disaster mail formed be the late Zvi Aloni (contributor to the American Air Mail Catalogue) and portions of Carl A. Kilgas' collections of China, Taiwan, PRC and Korea. There are substantial showings of Italy and Italian Colonies, Central and South America, Great Britain & British Commonwealth, plus hundreds of Large Lots and Collections offered intact and more. This is a public auction, with live internet bidding via CherrystoneLIVE
| Images | Description | Current Bid |
 | Lot #2086 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1872 (14 Feb) money letter from Vladivostok to Helsinki, canceled "Vladivostok Nar. AM.", intact wax seals, fine. One of four recorded covers with this postmark which was introduced when the Vladivostok post office opened in 1868. The central wax seal reads Vladivostokskaya Pocht. Kont. Na R. Amurye, both the postmark and wax seal erroneously place Vladivostok on the Amur River, instead of the Amur Bay. The letter contained 50 rubles and the postage was 75 kopecks (20 kopecks for weight, 50 kopecks for the 1% insurance fee and 5 kopecks for a receipt). Sent by Johan Albin Stierncreutz (who was the captain of an Amur River steamship from 1875 to 1895). Vladivostok's population was only 500 at the time and mail was dispatched once every two weeks (illustrated in Rossica Journal 163)  | Price Realized $1,900.00 |
 | Lot #2087 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1878 (29 Mar) registered cover from Vladivostok to Tarm, Denmark. franked with 3x8k (horizontally laid paper), postmarked "Vladivostok Na R.Am.", with Moscow transit and Tarm arrival pmks. One of four recorded covers with this Vladivostok postmark, which was introduced when the post office opened there in 1868. The postmark erroneously places Vladivostok on the Amur River, instead of the Amur Bay. The correct postage was 23 kopecks (8 kopecks for weight, 10 kopecks for registration, and 5kopecks for a receipt). In 1878, only 28 registered letters were sent abroad. Mail was dispatched once a week | Price Realized $1,600.00 |
 | Lot #2088 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1882 (19 Aug) 3k postal card from Vladivostok, via Moscow to Halberstadt, Germany, sent by a naval cadet on the German frigate "SMS Elisabeth", part of the German East Asia Squadron. The message reads, "This card will cross Siberia by caravan. On Monday we leave this harbor because a large English squadron with ten ships is expected. Our next stop is Shanghai", minor card faults at bottom, otherwise fine | Price Realized $425.00 |
 | Lot #2089 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1882 (19 Aug) 3k postal card sent by a sailor on the German frigate "SMS Elisabeth" from Vladivostok, via Nagasaki, Yokohama and San Francisco to another sailor on "SMS Moltke" in Montevideo, Uruguay, then forwarded to Valparaiso and Valdivia, Chile. Written on the front is "care of the German consulate" and "please forward this card." (As part of the First International Polar Year (1882-83), the German corvette Moltke transported a scientific team from Montevideo to South Georgia, arriving on 20th August and leaving for Valparaiso on 3rd September) | Price Realized $1,000.00 |
 | Lot #2090 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1899 (1 Apr) registered cover from Vladivostok, via Nagasaki and Yokohama to Ruhla, Germany, franked with 10k and 20k Arms, sent by Dr. Ludwig M. Birk, senior doctor for the Siberian Flotilla. The metal crimp was intended to prevent censorship. Instead of a registration label, the handstamp used on insured mail was applied. Also with a German registration label for mail arriving from abroad on the Verviers-Cologne railway, fine cover with appropriate transit and arrival markings | Price Realized $210.00 |
 | Lot #2091 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1904 (14 Sep) picture postcard (creased) sent from Postal Wagon No. 264 (Vladivostok-Harbin line) by a Kunst and Albers employee to James Richard Durant, Master of the "S/S Knight Commander", in care of His Britannic Majesty's Embassy in St. Petersburg. The message reads in part: "Dear Capt. Durant, Capt. Ohlerich left last Friday, two days after you. Hoping you are getting on well with your case". ("the Knight Commander", a British merchant ship, was headed to Yokohama with a cargo of foodstuffs and railway material when she was boarded by the Russian Navy on 23 July off the coast of Japan. The Russians declared the cargo to be contraband and after the crew was removed, the ship was sunk. The British owners sued for damages but lost the case. After the sinking, Durant was taken to Vladivostok. He left on 14 September and reached St. Petersburg on 5 October. He left for London before this postcard arrived in St. Petersburg. Capt. Ohlerich was master of the German cargo ship "Thea" which was sunk by the Russians on 24 July in the Sea of Japan. Kunst and Albers was the largest chain of general stores in Siberia) (this cover is illustrated in Forces Postal History Society Journal No. 327) | Price Realized $190.00 |
 | Lot #2092 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1905 (12 Sep) registered cover from Vladivostok to Amsterdam, franked with 20k Arms, tied by departure cds, rare "Vladivostok Military Censorship Commission" censor mark (one of two recorded examples), sent by Bryner, Kousnetzoff Co., with their handstamp on back | Price Realized $210.00 |
 | Lot #2093 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1911 (12 June) registered cover sent from the Vladivostok railway station to Idar, Germany, franked with 10k and 20k Arms, tied by departure cds, with a domestic registration label and an international registration handstamp. The backflap is imprinted with “Kunst Albers Wladiwostok” and the wax seal has the same wording | Price Realized $150.00 |
 | Lot #2094 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1914 (30 May) registered "declared-value" cover franked with 2x4k and 50k Arms, sent from Tetyukhe to Dornsdorf, Austria. The letter contained 140 rubles. The correct postage was 48 kopecks (3x10k for weight, 8 kopecks for insurance, and 10 kopecks for registration). Mail was dispatched to Vladivostok once a week on a Count Keiserling Co. ship. This is the earliest recorded mail from Tetyukhe, where postal operations began in March 1914. Julius Bryner opened a lead-zinc-silver mine here in 1899, 535 km from Vladivostok in the valley of Tetyukhe River. In 1909 a 38 km narrow gauge railroad opened from the mine to the mouth of the Tetyukhe River at the Pacific Ocean | Price Realized $260.00 |
 | Lot #2095 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1915 (9 Sep) registered cover sent by the American Consulate in Vladivostok to Max Zimmermann, a German marine captured by the Japanese at Tsingtao in November 1914 and interned at the Osaka POW camp, franked with 10k and 20k Arms, with a domestic registration handstamp and an international registration label. The wax seals read American Consulate Vladivostok. Censored in Japan, filing fold away from the stamps. Zimmermann was not released until December 1919. Before entering the war in 1917, the USA represented German interests in the Far East | Price Realized $500.00 |
 | Lot #2096 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1915 (28 Nov) legal size American Consular Service Vladivostok envelope (with letter) franked with 10k dark blue, posted on a Russian Volunteer Fleet ship sailing from Vladivostok, via Tsuruga to New York. Postmarked "Vladivost.-Tsuruga Parakh". The letter is signed by the American Consul John Kenneth Caldwell who acknowledges receipt of a New York City telephone directory sent by publisher Reuben H. Donnelley. Caldwell was consul in Vladivostok from 1914 to 1920, and played an important role during the Russian Civil War and the American military intervention in Siberia | Price Realized $150.00 |
 | Lot #2097 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1915 (27 Jan) registered Cash on Delivery (COD) cover franked on back with 3k Arms and Romanov 25k (faulty) and 3r, sent from Iman to Chita. The postage was 3 rubles, 28 kopecks (10 kopecks for weight, 10 kopecks for registration, and 3 rubles, 8 kopecks for 2% of the COD amount of 153 rubles, 60 kopecks rounded up). One of only two recorded items of Siberian COD mail | Price Realized $375.00 |
 | Lot #2098 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1917 (20 Apr) registered Consulate stationery cover franked with 3x10k/7k Romanov surcharges, sent by Rene Andre, French vice-consul in Vladivostok to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, with wax seal "Vice Consulate de France Vladivostok" and corresponding handstamp | Price Realized $150.00 |
 | Lot #2099 RUSSIA Russia - Russian Far East (Asia Pacific Region) 1929 (11 Dec) registered, legal-size cover franked with pair of 14k blue, sent from Tetyukhe Mine to London by Frank Butler-Jones (Julius Bryner opened a lead-zinc-silver mine there in 1899, 535 km from Vladivostok. Butler-Jones worked for the Tetyukhe Mining Corporation from 1927 to 1930 as mill superintendent. From 1933 he was employed by Thailand Tin Mines at the Pinyok mine in Yala province in southern Thailand, near the Malay border. He was murdered there by Japanese troops) | Price Realized $140.00 |
