Philatelist

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

His ancestor was an educated man … He graduated from high school, worked before the revolution somewhere in the vicinity of Astrakhan. And then revolution, famine, civil, this-and-so, the great migration of peoples, and he turned out to be in Moscow somewhere in the mid or late 20s. Settled in a communal apartment somewhere, he also married a newcomer, joined the cheerful crowd of employees, in short, the most typical story.

The only thing that distinguished him from the others was that he neither became a member of Osoaviakhim, nor handed over to the TRP, was not even a Voroshilov shooter. He invested all his time and free money in stamps. He was really obsessed with philately. He could actually lower half his salary on stamps. Which, of course, did not like his wife very much. They say that there is nothing to feed the children, but the faithful again bought some piece of paper. And so they lived.

Gradually, he became a fairly recognizable figure in narrow circles of philatelists, and he collected a good collection (the one that I saw in a giant 4-room apartment with 4-meter high ceilings with beautiful, obviously antique, chandeliers, parquet flooring, fireplaces, curtains, even antique furniture).

And in 1935 Levanevsky was supposed to fly from Moscow to San Francisco. The flight failed, but the stamp was still released on this occasion. The circulation was very small and the stamps were snapped up almost on the first day at the Moscow post office. Moreover, some stamps were overprinted. Great-grandfather naturally fit into this topic and also grabbed the stamp with the overprint. But when he was happy, he looked at her, it turned out that the overprint on the stamp was turned upside down. He tried to raise the hi, but was quickly wiped away from the window. They say, turn, do not distract.

At first he was upset, but then he realized that he got not just a stamp, but a rare stamp, with a rare overprint, with an even rarer inverted overprint. And another rarity, the letter F in the word San Francisco was small. That is, the fisherman caught the most that neither is a goldfish. At first, he shared his joy in a narrow circle of "limited" people, and even seemed to show it to someone. But then I decided to hide away from sin. Otherwise, you can lead your brother, a collector, into temptation.

And then he continued to live in his modest communal apartment, work at his factory, something like an accountant, and listen to the eternal reproaches of his wife about their economic situation.

Great-grandfather was not drafted in 1941 and he continued to work in Moscow. And one day in 1943 he was summoned to the management of the plant. There were very scary "uncles" who invited him to go with them. Well, he agreed to that (as if he could argue with them).

Brought to some very important rank. He looks sternly at his great-grandfather and says:

- Poligarf Poligrafych (conditional name, of course), you are ready to help the Soviet state.

- Always ready naturally, - answers the great-grandfather, like a young pioneer.

- They say you collect stamps?

- There is such a sin.

- And we know that you have one stamp about Levanevsky's flight.

Great-grandfather clutches at his heart, the conversation turned to the dearest.

- Yes, he says.

- I know that you are a patriot of your country and will gladly donate it to the altar of fighting the enemy

- With pleasure, - he says, - "why is she needed?"

- But this is no longer your business, for big politics it is necessary. But we are glad that you are ready to help. Here, comrades will ride with you wherever you say, and you will give them the stamp.

Great-grandfather just nodded his head.

Upset went to the exit. And in pursuit

- can you have any requests?

And then the great-grandfather became insolent with frustration and cut.

- I would like to improve the living conditions a bit. And then in one room in the 5th we can barely fit.

The big rank chuckled, “okay,” said.

The stamp was taken from him. A week later, he and his family safely moved to this apartment.

And here is the official historical information about the events in Tehran:

The British and Soviet embassies in Tehran were located on the same street, while the American residence was on the other side of the city. Already in Tehran, Soviet intelligence reported to Molotov about a large-scale Nazi conspiracy, and diplomats persuaded the US president to live in the Soviet embassy during the conference, since it was very dangerous for the US president to get to the conference by car through the narrow streets of the city every day. Roosevelt agreed to settle in the Soviet embassy in order to get to know "Uncle Joe" better, as he and Churchill called Stalin behind his back. Churchill was then dissatisfied with Roosevelt's choice and grumbled that the Russians had bribed the American president with stamps. Indeed, before moving into the Soviet residence, the passionate philatelist Roosevelt was presented with rare Soviet stamps. One of them was dedicated to the transpolar flight of the pilot Levanevsky across the North Pole. This brand was of great value to collectors. It was released in a small edition, and on several copies by mistake the American city was written with a small letter "f": "Flight Moscow - San Francisco, 1926". Now this brand is estimated at 6 thousand dollars.

And here is the philatelic reference:

The most expensive copy of the stamps of the times of socialism is the one that depicts the pilot Levanevsky. According to one version, the collectors should thank the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yagoda, who was largely responsible for the repressions of 1937, for its promotion. It was originally planned that the stamp would be dedicated to the heroic (at that time) flight of Levanevsky on the Moscow-San Francisco route. However, they did not have time to prepare it and released a stamp in the series "Rescue of the Chelyuskinites". And on top they made an overprint "Flight Moscow - San Francisco through the North Pole 1935". However, either they were in a hurry, or the total literacy was not yet completely total, but there were copies with grammatical errors in the overprint (for example, "Francisco" in a number of cases was written with a lowercase letter), and some were even made upside down (supposedly thanks to the instruction of Yagoda, who himself was a philatelist). Such a copy - with a small "f" and an inverted print - was sold for 603 thousand dollars at one of the auctions. Stamps with Levanevsky without all these errors and absurdities are much cheaper - several tens of thousands of rubles (according to the site stamp-up.ru). And at the time of preparation of the article on the website coinstamps.ru this brand was offered at all as part of the series "Rescue of the Chelyuskinites" for 4000 rubles.