Guthrum

05 Sep 2015
07:05:21pm

In what I presume was an attempt to rustle up some funds for the new Georgiev 'Fatherland Front' regime, installed the previous September following the arrival of the Red Army, 3 sets of overprinted stamps were issued in 3 values in March 1945, by way of using up stocks of definitive stamps of the late King Boris.

The Stanley Gibbons catalogue translates the three savings campaign slogans as "Collect All Rags", "Collect Old Iron" and "Collect Waste Paper", and they are overprinted in Cyrillic on the 1, 2 and 4 leva stamps. Thus there are 9 basic stamps.

Or there should be, because at this point it gets rather more complicated, perforation-wise. Gibbons tries to simplify it by listing the basic P13 stamps, only there are actually not 9, but 7 (two of the 2 leva stamps not used), together with a variety of P11½, only there are again not 9 but 6 (two of the 1 leu and one of the 4 leva not used).

Are you with me so far? (Thought not! But I'll press on.) Of the 18 theoretically possible stamps, then (9 of each perforation), Gibbons lists only 13 as actually existing. I have ten of them, but when I speak to dealers about the other three they become dubious, indeed dismissive, about the whole Gibbons listing and can help no further. It's true that some of these stamps have decidedly rough perforations, but my question is (at last...) what do other catalogues, Scott or Michel, make of these stamps? Are their lists different?

I did try to upload a scan of my album page, but the quality was so poor that I decided not to post. And annoyingly I seem to have a further perforation variety on one stamp ("Rags", 2 leva) which is P11 x 10½, or so I stoutly maintain.

Some of you fellows with 300,000+ stamps must have these, no? Any clarification would be gratefully received.

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Guthrum

06 Sep 2015
04:39:25am

re: Bulgarian Savings Campaign stamps, March 1945 query

So, no perforation varieties for Scott, then. (Does that mean Gibbons is rather more advanced?) Anyone have the Michel catalogue?

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re: Bulgarian Savings Campaign stamps, March 1945 query

Colnect shows all 18 varieties with graphics & listings from Michel

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Guthrum

06 Sep 2015
01:31:53pm

re: Bulgarian Savings Campaign stamps, March 1945 query

Thanks Nelson (for the link) and Keijo (for the list).

The results are now in and (for those of you who have been following this thread with bated breath) are as follows:

Scott: 9 - a very basic score: presumably there is a Scott specialised Bulgarian catalogue somewhere that can do better.

Gibbons: 13 - as detailed in my original post.

Michel: 18 - 13 in the two perforations allowed by Gibbons, plus an entirely new perforation (10¾) for all three of the 2 leva value, plus a mixed perf for two of the 2 leva values, as shown in Keijo's list.

All done? Well, no actually, since Gibbons' basic 13 and Michel's basic 13 differ in two respects. Michel allows a perf 11½ for the 1 leu "paper" (which Gibbons does not), while Gibbons allows a perf 13 for the 2 leva "iron" (which Michel does not).

We'll give Gibbons the benefit of the doubt and say that their latest specialised catalogue for Bulgaria probably gives all 18 stamps, and may even have come to an agreement with Michel over the two with which it conflicts.

Meanwhile, for this collector with his 10 stamps the wants list has just jumped from 3 to 8. You can see why dealers want no part of this sort of thing!

Thanks again for your help, gentlemen.

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Rhinelander

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30 Sep 2015
11:33:32pm

re: Bulgarian Savings Campaign stamps, March 1945 query

This is truly a fun thread, which made me go back to my Bulgaria collection.

The basic stamps are printed in sheets of 2 x 9 x 10, which was then cut into two sheets of 9 x 10. Interestingly, and the thread made me go to my books to read up on the issue once more, two different overprints were used for the left and right sheets so that gutter pairs exist of two stamps with different overprints. I don't have any of those, but these should be neat. I do have some margin copies with overprints, these are also cool but obviously a lot more common:



Based on this tread, I will have to double-check and perhaps reorganize my stamps. I always collected this issue according to perf. variety (following Michel) but this was an easy 20 years ago. Probably time to revisit. It appears the illusive one is the 10 3/4 line perf which only exists for the 2L red stamp (on two or all sides, anything 10 3/4 is good). All the rest appear to be common and just a question of effort to get. The two stamps I show are both L 11 1/2.

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