Finland
Monday, March 3, 1856.
Imperforate, wove paper, no watermark, typographed.
Printed by the Finnish Treasury.
| Description | # printed | Scott # | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small perls in posthorn. March 3, 1856 | |||
| 5 kopek blue | 138,500 | 1 | |
| 10 kopek red | 442,400 | 2 | |
| Large perls in posthorn. 1858 | |||
| 5 kopek blue | ? | 3 | |
These stamps were issued following an Imperial Edict dated March 1, 1856. The stamps were issued provisionally to test demand for distictively Finnish stamps as opposed to Russian stamps.
Each oval printed about 3 mm. apart, so large margins should be required for high quality stamps. However, as you can see, these stamps are quite rare.
The stamps were printed on a small press at the Office of the Treasury in Finland. The was not large enough to accommodate a complete sheet, so the stamps were printed using the "work and turn" method; the first horizontal row of ten stamps was printed, then the paper was turned to print the second and final row. Therefore the layout of the tête-bêche pairs is often uneven.
The denomination is in kopek since Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia until Finland declared independence in 1917. After a war Finland was independent from 1919. From 1866 the currency was pennia & markka
This page was last modified on Monday, 03-Nov-2003 13:57:42 PST