This brief article is dedicated to a series of very interesting stamps, that was purchased by me within the big collection of revenues in the 90-th. It is the series of entertainment duty stamps. Their history started at the Tsar time when the first series of VUIM stamps... >>>
Philatelists have the following hobby - collection of postcards, envelopes and other postal papers. Collectors of revenues have the same one, but subject of collecting is a set of documents: account sheets, tickets, cards, and others... >>>
It's a well-known fact that stamps are the brand of engraving art. It should be mention that many of stamps collectors collect prints of postage stamps on the envelopes and post cards. There are a lot of articles and researches in this area in the magazines and journals. But prints of postage stamps never to be compared with the prints of revenue stamps from the point of view of beauty and variety
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It seems that this is the best article of author. It has been pablished in one of the most authoritative journal for collectors - "Antiquariat" and dedicated to the most colourful revenues - stamps of WWI >>>
This brief article is dedicated to a series of very interesting stamps, that was purchased by me within the big collection of revenues in the 90-th. It is the series of entertainment duty stamps. Their history started at the Tsar time when the first series of VUIM stamps (VUIM - Government of the Institutions of Empress Maria) (). That stamps can be related to Charity stamps divisions, because of duty was paid for charitable organization, but in fact that was obligatory duty, so VUIM stamps are the revenue stamps. Normally, VUIM stamps were pasted on theatre and cinema tickets and repaid an anguish.
During Soviet time, the issuing of entertainment duty stamps was continued by the several series, one of them is the republican series (1923) (), second is the all-union series (1932ã) (). The difference between them is the absence of the cut-off receipt part (the same difference took place for 3-d and 4-th VUIM issues too). Republican series was in use for a long time and stamps can be found in many collections. As for second series (all-union one), here misfortune took place. This series was issued directly before implementation of "Poshlina" tax duty stamps, "Poshlina" should replaced all other revenue stamps. Thus, all-union series of entertainment duty stamps didn't got in the manipulation. It seems that mostly this series was demolished. Till the 90-th the stamps with overprint "EXAMPLE" were known only (see the catalogue of revenue in "FILATELIA" journal, stamp with value in 30k).
But it seems that anyway a part of stamps got in the manipulation or some worker took list of stamps "in memory". It's the explanation of existence of the five stamps without overprint. Such stamps were not known for the famous collectors of Russian revenue - Safroneev, Turchinskiy etc.
The author of this article has the five stamps from this series. They were printed in one colour on the white paper with gum and without watermark, the size is 23õ14.5mm. Here is the list:
1) 2k. green (dent.12x12.5)
2) 6k. lilac (dent.12x12.5)
3) 7k. black (dent.12x12.5)
4) 8k. lilac-red (dent.11)
5) 9k. light-brown (dent.11)
Looking at the values, we can image that series was enough long to fit the wide range of ticket values. The difference in dental size testifies either about testing character of stamps or about two different issues (like for postal stamps). Let's note that these are the standard sizes for 1930-th stamps dentals.
Nevertheless, the history of variety of Soviet revenues was drastically interrupted in 1930-th. Entertainment duty stamps shared the destiny of other revenues. At that time Soviet govement centralized and simplified the system of taxes, fees and duties. Ordinary-looking "Poshlina" stamps and other forms of account and the control superseded the variety of revenue stamps, that diminishes the interest of collectors. It, in turn, leads to existance of a number of riddles in this topic, which we face to. Destiny of a all-union entertainment duty stamps is one of them.
