1945 SARAJEVO, Registered mail

Check out this attractive registered postal stationery...

1945 Sarajevo local provisional issue, registered postal stationery, type III, franked with 5 din (1 din prepaid and 4 din for the registration), sent from Mostar (25.VIII.45) to Ljubljana. Surcharged 

with a rarely seen "Prohor Pčinjski" stamps.

Double censorship

Normally, all shipments were censored at departure, but from time to time you can find some that were censored at arrival or they were not censored at all. The rarest are those that have been censored twice.

Registered letter sent from Banja Luka (26.V.1945) to Šibenik, franked with 160 occupational din, cancelled in transit in Prijedor (27.V.1945), first censored at departure (handwritten censor mark on the front side) and secondly at arrival in Šibenik (censor mark no. 6 on the back side).

At departure - handwritten censor mark.

At arrival - censor mark No. 6 - Šibenik.

1944 SENTA, Rubber canceller

Recently I found a Senta letter cancelled with an unusual canceller. At first glance, the cancellation seemed very strange, but then I found exactly the same cancellation on the special commemorative sheet I obtained from the Senta city archive. It is still not clear why this provisional rubber canceller has been used at the beginning of 1945...

1944 Senta provisional issue, letter, properly franked with 30 f, sent from Senta (2.I.1945) to Mol, cancelled with provisional rubber canceller.

Provisional rubber canceller.
POŠTA  /  ___ ★ 194_  /  SENTA 

Before I show that special commemorative sheet with the same rubber cancellation, you need to know that at the end of October 1944, the National Liberation Committee in Senta issued commemorative sheets with Senta provisional stamps (for more see here).

Senta commemorative sheet

At the end of the 1944 or at the beginning of 1945, after the new DFJ stamps arrived, they made new commemorative sheets in such a way that they simply overlay a piece of paper on top of remained sheets, leaving only the upper inscription with a five-pointed star and the blue/red border. Interestingly, this time they used the same canceller as on the above-mentioned letter.

Modified Commemorative sheet. Note how they overlap original content.
(Click on image to enlarge)

The same provisional rubber canceller.

Update: see also 1944 SENTA, Rubber canceller - 2

PhilAdria 18th Stamp auction

After a long time, I finally spent a nice and calm philatelic day. I went to the PhilAdria auction, I bought a few items and had a nice chat with colleagues.

PhilAdria auction hall.

1945 MARIBOR, Ruše cancellation

I found an interesting correspondence which shows the development of the cancellation methods in Ruše immediately after the WWII. Check out the sequence:

The first letter is dated 19.06.1945. A provisional date stamp and a rectangular censor cachet have been used while there is no Ruše cancellation at all.

The second letter is dated 29.06.1945. A provisional date stamp, "RUŠE" cancellation and a round censor cachet have been used.

The third letter is dated 21.07.1945. A new "classic" RUŠE 1 cancellation was used and there is no censor mark (as the censorship stopped after the 02.07.1945).

Note that all three letters share the same cash payment cancellation. First and second letter were franked with 12 pf while the third one was franked in new currency of 2 din.

In the meantime DFJ stamps arrived to Ruše, so the fourth letter, dated 07.08.1945, is the first one  from that correspondence that is franked with a postage stamp.