Apsit
Latvia
map
stamps
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 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 - the backs were not yet printed and they were not yet trimmed to a smaller size for folding. Previous literature has not noted this. The back of a finished map showed 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. They were maps of this region, showing 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 design by Ansis Cirulis [in 1918 Zihrulis] has 3 ears of grain in a ring in a rising sun, and 3 stars in the rays around the sun. Each sheet has 228 stamps in 12 rows of 19 stamps. The unusual arrangement of stamps allowed the greatest 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 black.
Printer
The Schnakenburg Printing Works in Riga printed the stamps. In late 1919 it became the Latvian Government Printing Office.
Quantity
There are receipts 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, but these are only estimates that originated with E. Šneiders in an early Latvian postal stamp catalogue. Imperforate stamps are more common than perforated.to next page - printing proofs
Updated Thu, 2002-08-15 .
Copyright © 2001, 2002, Bill Apsit.
