Russia Bogus & Charity

The following were mainly issued from 1917-23 at a time when charity stamps were popular.

They are basically Cinderellas or Bogus stamps without postal validity.

In some other cases there are military issues that were never approved or actually put into service. These are very common and I will be adding more to the series.

1919 White Movement Generals propaganda issue

They allegedly had been ordered by the Government of the General Denikin, but were not approved because of the many spelling errors in the inscriptions.

A more likely version suggests that this series has been ordered abroad as propaganda material of news agency (OSVAG) Special Meeting of the Commander VSYUR , but the order was canceled, again due to the mass of errors.

1922 Odessa Hunger issue

Original 1922 ad for the bogus issues

1922 Bogus produced by Marco Fontana of Italy who probably made some of the previous ones.

1923 Famine Relief Bogus 

This is also a creation of Fontana of Udine Italy. At the time it was considered a genuine charity stamp. I have only posted a few variations but the color and perf differences are obvious. 

So far the probable conclusions are that there is an original set, a reprinting and 2 different forgeries that may be the reprint with very worn dies.

Additional features: the original and reprint are perf 11.5 or imperf on thin paper, the "forgeries" are perf 11 and 10.75 with a vertical mesh on thick paper.

The original is on the far left.

1923 Bogus

1923 Turkestan Bogus

This is from a 1923-1924 set of fantasy stamps printed in either Paris or Italy.  

Stamps exist in two varieties of perforation, 11.5 and 14.5, as well as imperforated. 

The imperf stamps can be found with a purple overprint "Rub" (Ruble). 

Another overprint (5 lines) shows the acronym VTKP (Yostochno-Turkestanskoye Kraevoe Pravitel). 

Some of these stamps have been cancelled with a fake circular Russian language cancellation.