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Latvia
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Latvia map stamps - introduction
Background
In Riga on November 18, 1918, in the aftermath of World War I, Latvia declared independence. The German army still occupied Latvia, which had been part of Russia. As the Germans gradually withdrew from Latvia, the following Soviet Latvian troops were immediately reoccupying it.
Military maps as paper for stamps
With the war-induced shortage of paper in Latvia, the new Latvian postal administration chose surplus German military maps for printing their first stamps. The maps were from the series Karte des westlichen Rußlands. The paper quality was excellent. Latvians also used these maps to wrap fish in the Riga market, as Janis Ronis [†2000] of Brampton, Ontario, recalled from his boyhood.
The maps were unfinished; that is, their backs were not printed and they were not trimmed to a smaller size for folding. Previous literature has not noted this. The back of finished maps were generally printed with the region name and scale [RUSSLAND, 1:100 000] and map grid position and main town name, such as S18. Illukßt. When folded into sixths, this information appeared on the top of the map.
The unfinished maps were in storage in Riga, the German military headquarters for the region. Although the map series contained maps of a large area east of Germany, these maps showed southern and eastern Latvia and most of Lithuania. Some of the maps had become obsolete when new editions replaced them; others were obsolete because WWI was over. The map paper is a dark cream colour.Design
Q17 Ponedele, block of 4, map is upside-down with respect to stamps, enlarged at 150dpi jpeg@80%. For a 600 dpi enlargement, click the stamp or map side [80K images].
The stamp design by Ansis Cirulis [in 1918 Zihrulis] with 3 ears of grain in a ring in a rising sun, and 3 stars in the rays around the sun. Each stamp sheet has 228 stamps in 12 rows of 19. This unusual arrangement allowed for a maximum number of stamps per printing sheet. The stamp is red. Most of the maps are black with thin brown lines to show altitude. Some maps are entirely in black, and some of these were replaced by newer versions in black with thin brown lines.
Printer
The Schnakenburg Printing Works in Riga printed the stamps. In late 1919 it became the Latvian Government Printing Office.
Quantity
Receipts exist for 11,956 sheets [2,725,968 stamps]. They include 4,750 sheets delivered before the government evacuated Riga for Liepāja on January 2, 1919, and 7,206 sheets after the government returned to Riga on May 22, 1919. The receipts for the initial 4,750 sheets show 1,874 perforated sheets and 2,876 gummed sheets. Gummed appears to mean imperforate.
There is no information about how many of the 7,206 sheets were imperforate. Catalogues report 1,600,000 imperforate and 1,125,968 perforate; these are estimates by E. Šneiders in an early Latvian postal stamp catalogue. Imperforate stamps are more common than perforated. A large portion of sheets are ungummed.to next page - printing proofs
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Updated Fri, 2010-02-05 .
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