Wednesday, March 30, 2016

1945 SPLIT, Letter with unusual route

Recently I found an interesting letter, addressed from Kaštel Stari to Zagreb and traveled via the Zadar. The normal route for mail from Šibenik and Split to Zagreb was by train through the Knin, but it looks like that this letter traveled unusually, first by boat to Zadar and then to Zagreb. 


1945 Split local provisional issue, registered letter, properly franked with 50 kn, sent from Kaštel Stari (17.V.45) to Zagreb. Censor cancellation No. 3 (Split). Via Zadar cancellation (20.V.45).

Zadar cancellation POŠTA (?) / 20.V.45 / ZADAR.
I have never seen this cancellation before, so I will be grateful for any information.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

1941 MEĐIMURJE, Overprint forgeries

Only one type of forgeries is known to me. It was produced immediately after the WWII and it is so poor that can only confuse those that did not see the originals.

The differences are visible at a first glance: different typography was used, text is narrowed and the relationship between overprinted elements is quite different. The most obvious distinction is invalid type of coat-of-arms. The originals have coat-of-arms of the Banovina of Croatian, while forgeries have coat-of-arms of the Independent State of Croatia (different sequence of white and black squares).

Original on the left and forgery on the right.

Note that two types and four subtypes of the coat-of-arms exists. For details, see: 1941 MEĐIMURJE - The Clasification of Overprints.

Monday, March 14, 2016

1945 SPLIT, Zagreb suspended mail service

On the day of the liberation of Zagreb (8.5.1945) the military government temporarily suspended mail service for civilians. Shipments were detained in post offices and delivered to the recipients only after the release of postal traffic, somewhere around 7.6.1945.

1945 Split local provisional issue, postal stationery, type 2/IIb, sent registered from Split (28.V.45) to Zagreb (4.VI.45).

4.VI.45 Zagreb cancellation on the back side. Stationery was probably delivered to the recipient only after a mail traffic was released again.