Today in Postal History
This colorful registered cover never was airborne
although it bore eight different airmail stamps.
It went into the mail in Kaunas and was
delivered in the city the next day.
Kaunas is inland about 180
km from the Baltic Sea
on the Nemunas River and about 220 km south of Riga, Latvia.
There are four CDS for September 16 and a receiving CDS for
September 17.
There is a registry handstamp which has a script serial number.
The cover was franked with a complete set of the
1933 triangle airs issued per Scott on September 15 (Scott C71-C78).
The cover may or may not be what passed for a first day
cover.
The stamps were issued to benefit Lithuanian
orphans.
The stamps were only good for one week and all were sold to collectors
and stamp clubs.
Usages are almost exclusively philatelic.*
Scott mentions that the stamps are Perf. 14, Imperf.
Early Lithuanian stamps were sometimes left
without perforations on the stamps next to the selvage.
This left outside stamps with one or more sides imperforate.
In this particular case, however, the stamps were also issued as
imperforates.*
*Thanks to Maarten Willems for the supplemental information
on sales and perforations.
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Today in Postal History
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Pastnotes
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