Stamp with a mistake - 100th anniversary of the birth of Sabir (USSR). Azerbaijan.

I would like to tell you about one of the most interesting and expensive stamps dedicated to Azerbaijan, about the stamp with an error - “Azerbaijani poet Sabir”.

Mirza Alekper Tairzade, (1862-1911) was born on May 30, 1862 in Shemakha into a poor family of a small merchant. "Sabir" ("patient") is one of the poet's many pseudonyms. This name was stuck with the poet, although he had other pseudonyms. I do not want to retell the autobiography of the Azerbaijani satirist writer, but I would like to note that his poems and quatrains filled with sarcasm and subtle humor were perceived by the government of Soviet Azerbaijan as the first arrows of the disgruntled people into the bull's eye of tsarist Russia.

Stamp without error

Error stamp

In 1962, in the USSR, an anniversary postage stamp dedicated to the writer was issued with a circulation of 3 million. It seems that an ordinary anniversary stamp with a portrait of the writer did not reach the post offices, since an error was found on the stamp. Trying to confirm that the hero of the day belongs to Azerbaijan, the editor’s issue a stamp with the word "Azerbajchanin Shairi Sabir", where the last two letters in the first word are an error, the ending "IN" (belonging to the genitive case) is not required. Printed sheets are recalled back, and without reaching the post offices and urgently reissued. The printing house prints a revised version of the stamp (instead of "AzerbaijanIN" - "Azerbaijan") with a circulation of 3 million and a denomination of 4 kopecks (Deep print; perforated; frame 11 1/2; multicolored; artist L. Kerimov). Part of the sheets with an error on the stamp is destroyed, the second part is preserved for reprinting, and the third part is resold by the workers of the printing house to speculators and collectors at a cosmic price. The updated version of the stamp did not make it to the anniversary of the writer and entered circulation at the end of June 1962, although the anniversary was celebrated at the end of May.

Investing in misspelled stamps is a great investment. Today, only a few dozen collectors have this stamp in their collection. Single variants of the brand, couplings and quarter blocks are possible, but no one has yet announced a copy in the sheet. It is safe to say that the price of a brand with a mistake in the word "Azerbaijanin" will grow. Already today (July 2015) the auction price at the auction is about $ 3,000. The price of a brand without error is about $ 1. As the famous slogan says - FEEL THE DIFFERENCE!

V. Jacobs. Two versions of the 1962 "Sabir" postage stamp. Philately of the USSR. 1974. No. 8. P. 41

This brand is well known to Soviet philatelists. It was issued by the Ministry of Communications of the USSR in July 1962 in connection with the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Azerbaijani poet Alekper Tairzade Sabir. The stamp was created according to a drawing by artist L. Kerimov. In the center there is a portrait of Sabir, at the top there is a commemorative text in the Azerbaijani language, at the bottom under the counter is the same text “Azerbaijani poet Sabir” in Russian. This stamp has a face value of 4 kopecks and is described in the catalog “Postage stamps of the USSR. 1918 - 1969”edition of the Central Philatelic Agency under number 2714.

This brand has one rather interesting variety. The catalog of the CFA describes, and is found in most of the collections, a stamp with the text in the Azerbaijani language "AZERBAIJAN SHAIRI SABIR". With this text, this mark was officially published. However, though quite rarely, this brand comes across with a different text: "AZERBAIJANIN SHAIRI SABIR". This text is erroneous, the ending "IN" (belonging to the genitive case) is not required. The presence of two extra letters in the inscription caused a slight decrease in the size of the font.

How could there be two versions of the text on the same postage stamp? Obviously, if we compare the font design and the size of the inscriptions on the stamp, initially a stamp with the erroneous text "AZERBAICHANYN SHAIRI SABIR" was being prepared for release. However, in the process of preparing the stamp, an error was discovered and a new cliché was made with the corrected inscription "AZERBAIJAN SHAIRI SABIR". At the same time, the font of the inscription was slightly increased, which violated the font uniformity of the inscriptions in the Russian and Azerbaijani languages. The circulation of stamps with the corrected inscription entered the postal circulation. It should be added here that the brand was late for the celebration of the anniversary. Sabir's jubilee was celebrated at the end of May, and a special postage stamp came into circulation only on July 16. It is possible that the reason for the delay in the release of the stamp was the need to correct this error.

Stamps with the erroneous inscription "AZERBAICHANYN SHAIRI SABIR" are relatively rare. Obviously, a number of such stamps were still issued and got to collectors.

source https://azstamp.wordpress.com/