Pottering work

Recently a new kind of philatelic looking pottering work is offered.
It concerns "real posted" letters from the former Russian republics, with on it thematic stamps from the period of the revolution. As we all know, the stamp sheets from these states from the period 1990-1999 are mostly Cinderellas, but when you see such a registered envelop you sometimes start to doubt. Have a good look at the images of the envelops below:

The two envelops are bought from different traders. But they bear exactly the same postmarks, and have been sent by the same sender to the same receiver. Off course the Abkhazia stamps are fake. After the falling apart of the USSR Abkhazia became an autonomous republic within Georgia, and should thus make use of Georgian stamps for its post. The makers (I can't call them forgers) have quite some knowledge about the subject, as the letter is principally correct, also registered, only the franking value is off course not OK. The envelops are still from the former USSR.

The letter below from Ingushetia is of the same kind, and for this one they even used an old Russian motorcycle envelop.

In the first months after the Glasnost the normal Russian stamps were still used, and when these ran out the CCCP-stamps were grabbed again for emergency use.
Here some examples of the "Provissionels" and below them a Latvian stamp with imprint on a CCCP stamp.

Hans de Kloet

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