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Title: The Postal History and Stamps of Tuva by Samuel M. Blekhman, J. Eric Slone, Ron Hogg ISBN: 1-58490-017-2 Publisher: Scientific Consulting Services Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $18.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: (Almost) everything there is to know about Tuvan stamps!
Comment: At long last, reliable information on the postal usage of Tuvan stamps is available to readers of English. (No longer must we content ourselves with the Scott catalog's extremely hypocritical note that the beautiful pictorials are not listed because the "editors do not consider them to have been issued primarily for postal purposes." OF COURSE they weren't! Neither were most of the other stamps issued in the 20th century --- most of which nevertheless are happily listed by that catalog! ) Many thanks to the Tannu Tuva Collector's Society and to Ron Hogg for undertaking this difficult task!

If it had not been for Blekhman's enthusiasm for Tuvan stamps at a time when Tuva was the "ugly duckling" of the philatelic world, much extremely rare material would not have survived to be recorded for posterity. But the handbook does not stop with stamps. Postal stationary, postmarks, and history (especially postal history, naturally) are also dealt with in great detail.

Some of the illustrations (including the maps) were replaced in this translation with ones of better optical quality than in the original book; some footnotes have been added too, giving information that has come to light since Blekhman wrote his masterpiece in 1976 (yet more information can be found in the writings of F. Vanius in Filateliya magazine and elsewhere - but unfortunately it is in Russian) and also correcting a few typos and bloopers from the original text. A few of Blekhman's mistakes that I notice were NOT corrected, for those who are interested, are: p. 42, last line, should read "40 tugriks" (not "41 tugriks"); p. 43, last line, the cover arrived in HARBIN, not in Moscow; p. 44, stamp no. 11, the overprint is RED not black; p. 49, footnote 33 seems in reality to be a reference to footnote 42; and p. 92, stamp 140I is on YELLOWISH paper, not white. The Appendix, too, on p. 99, did not appear in the original; it is marred by 6 typographical errors in the Cyrillic text, and also by the unfortunate transposing of the English translation s of the third and fourth terms. Figure 43 (p. 41) helpfully includes the Mongolian digits missing from Blekhman's original figure.

While I am at it, I would like to mention that the last sentence of the first full paragraph on p. 34 ("The last use of this postmark was in November of 1942.") is not found in Blekhman's original text, but stems from Cronin's commentary. Also, I stumbled across a few unfortunate errors in translation: p. 42, 1st paragraph: last word should be HUES (or shades, or tints), not impressions; p. 44, stamps 13I and 14I are DOUBLE overprints, not inverted overprints; and p. 56, paragraph 3, line 1, should read "Sayany", not Sadna. As a final point of criticism, I have the feeling that the translation was not carefully checked, and was possibly done under deadline pressure. Perhaps some of these minor mistakes will be fixed when the book is reprinted.

All in all, this book is a very valuable contribution to the unjustly neglected field of Tuvan philately, and should find a place on the bookshelf of any interested person whose English is more fluent than his or her Russian.

Rating: 5
Summary: The truth about Tuva 1926-1944 ...in ENGLISH!
Comment: Truly an amazing work. Before Ken Simon and Ron Hogg attacked the task of translating this book, it was only available to those who could read Russian. And at that, they could only see this book via poor fourth-generation xerox copies of the long out of print book.

As to the content, this volume gives the background (postal and historic) of what was going on in Tuva during the stated time period. The quality and detail of the postal information is unmatched in any other book, and the historical information regarding the country and the turmoil facing the post is also top-notch.

The book is liberally illustrated, which is wonderful given that so many of the postal uses of Tuvan stamps never made it out of Russia. This book is essential to understand the truth about the legitimate postal needs that the Sekula issues met.

Bleckhman occasionally uses phrases that you would expect from a writer on 'the other side' of the iron curtain, but they are very few and rather quaint to now read. The only negative impact Blekhman's situation has on the book is his avoidance of information on CTO stamps and the removal of one of the Kyzyl cancels to Moscow (done to service covers in Moscow without having to actually send them to Tuva). Cronin's writings in Rossica are still essential reading for these topics, but for all else this is the ultimate source of information on Tuvan postal history and stamps.

Rating: 5
Summary: A great book.
Comment: An outstanding reference book for Tannu Tuva stamps. Not only did I buy one for myself, but I purchased several others for friends of mine who collect stamps. Books like these were not available when I collected stamps. Now, as a dealer, it is an invaluable reference tool; one which every collector should add to their library.