Central Lithuania: Stamps

Nice to see I'm not the only one missing those (hugely expensive) overprints, LOL.

Of course I prefer used .



Wilno (now Vilnius) 1920 cancel. Not sure if it is Jan 1 or Dec 12.

I am a negative so and so, when it comes to CL postmarks,
I smell dodgy enterprises pty ltd.

I only have one pmk that even comes close to muster, Swieciany and that used Roman Numerals for the month slug.

A village noted in the holocaust 20 years later

I've got roughly 2 (stockbook) pages full of Central Lithuania.

First page is used items. The below is one of the few stamps I've had no heart to soak off (though I usually soak just about everything): 



The other half is a mix of (mint/uncanceled) forgeries, reprints and printers waste. Though I primarily collect used only,  items as below make excellent reference for my 'worldwide forgeries collection' (something I'm building up along my main collection of worldwide postage stamps): 



Some more items can be seen on my blog, where I wrote a somewhat lengthy summary of stamps of Central Lithuania few years back -  www.stampcollectingblog.com/srodkowa-litwa-stamps-of-central-lithunia.php 

-k-

BC scribbled...."Wilno (now Vilnius) 1920 cancel. Not sure if it is Jan 1 or Dec 12."

Neither. I have it as 1st December.

Oops Rod, I meant Dec 1 or January 12.  Sometimes they switch the order.

May I a little to this?

Plebiscite issues of Central Lithuania

This a complete set of the plebiscite issues for Upper Silesia.
Below is the 1921 semi-postal set, overprinted to raise money to support the Polish campaign during the Upper Silesia plebiscite.



A plebiscite is defined as "a vote by which the people of an entire country or district express an opinion for or against a proposal, especially on a choice of government or ruler."

"After World War I, a number of disputed areas were placed under temporary League of Nations administration, pending plebiscites to determine which nation the populace wished to join. Special issues note the upcoming vote in several of these areas."

Prior to WWI, multi-national and multi-ethnic empires comprised much of Europe. These included the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. At the end of the war, these empires were mostly liquidated along national lines.

During WWI, United States President Woodrow Wilson called for "peace without victory" at the conclusion of the war. He elaborated this idea in his "Fourteen Points" speech to Congress in 1918.

Points V through XIII dealt with the issue of "national self-determination." By this, Wilson meant that the people of each nation should be able to determine how and by whom they would be governed.

At the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson's idea of national self-determination was honored as much in the breech as in the observance. Generally speaking, it was much easier to apply the principle to the territories of countries that were on the losing side than to the winners.

In some areas of the fallen empires where the population was homogeneous or where only small minorities of other populations existed, drawing new national boundaries was fairly easy.

Many areas of the old empires had mixed populations of relatively equally proportions. Following the establishment of the League of Nations, it was decided to hold plebiscites in some of these areas with mixed populations, to allow the people who lived there to determine which country the territory would belong to.

Four of the six territories discussed here were placed under control of the Inter-Allied Control Commission pending the outcome of the plebiscite sponsored by the League of Nations, and postage stamps were issued for them.

On the list of plebiscites is Eastern Silesia. Formerly a part of Austria, the territory had a mixed German, Polish and Czech population of more than 680,000.

Both Czechs and Poles lived in parts of Eastern Silesia, and they were unable to reach agreement on where the border should be drawn.

The Allies were asked to arbitrate, but they were unable to arrive at a solution acceptable to all parties, so on Sept. 27, 1919, a plebiscite was called.

The plebiscite was to be held under the auspices of the Allied Powers rather than the League of Nations and its IACC.

Eastern Silesia is unique in that the proposed plebiscite was not under IACC auspices, and, while plebiscite stamps for the region were issued by both the Czechoslovakian and Polish governments, the plebiscite was never held. A Polish 1-korona Agriculture stamp overprinted "S. O. 1920," 

Moving right along to the good bit-

** The plebiscite, held March 20, 1921, was indecisive. The vote was nearly equally divided between Poland and Germany, so the Inter-Allied Control Commission divided the territory between the two countries based on the results of the plebiscite.

If you wish to read more please see Linn's article on Central Lituania - www.linns.com/howto/refresher/plebiscites_20030526/refreshercourse.aspx

"Here are my maps of Central Lithuania:"

Exceptional BC, golly, you are a cartographic legend.
We have such talent abouard TSF.

Duly pilfered (with acknowledgement) for my Album

I came across these in an old stock book... i'm wondering if the miscut is genuine

khj  excuse me for asking/not knowing, but I'm not sure I understand...by user created, do you mean "end user" had a sheet of stamps and just cut them ...poorly?
In the image I also question that the printing borders from one impression to the other are not  close to parallel.in-line, but as this is  a crude printing, perhaps the "plate" was hand cut/engraved"?

I am also suspect, due to how much "whiter" the paper is  on the inperf

i found some perf and imperf lots for sale on HipStamp (not a high value stamp) but no indication as to date of issue in the few I found

Thanks for your answer/insight

Yes, what I meant was someone was separating singles from a pane or larger multiple without regard to creating a well-centered stamp.

Nelson's reply sums it up. I will also add, that paper quality varied considerably, so some printings will be on "rougher paper" or slightly "whiter/cleaner/smoother" paper. Print quality varied over time with plate wear. On this typographed issue, there really wasn't a major effort to precisely align each stamp position. That is expected, given the paper/print quality.

On a side note, you do see positional alignment shifts in modern stamps. US rotary press coils are an example. Where the ends of the rolls meet, the stamps don't always line up perfectly in a line across the joint/gap (you will sometimes see an upward/downward shift). Normally, we only think in terms of the more popular joint line pairs. But you can find examples of a noticeable shift in a pair. This is also true of block tagging on horizontal coils (I actually collecting these tagging "jumps" in coil pairs).

René (renden ), you must have missed it.  It is Central Lithuania, Sc39, 5m red brown.  Scott Design Type A12.  That's taken from my 2017 Scott Classic Specialized.

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Edit: But I have also noted from Morten's (classicalstamps ) website that forgeries exist from this set, and the perfs on your stamp look a bit ragged.  It should be a clean perf 14 to be genuine, I think.