COVER N. 265 - SERBIA

Postmark: NIS 18106 - 29.05.2023

Posted on the 29th May; Received on the 15th June 2023

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And so the list keeps growing: Welcome Serbia and Thank you very much, Slavoljub, for this very interesting cover with this and last year's Day of the Stamp commemorative issues.

I, being quite unlearned in philatelic history and peculiarities, had to go and look over the internet to try and comprehend what was behind the images in the stamps, since the Cyrillic alphabet makes it impossible for me to decipher anything in the legends. 

This of course happens also with the Latin alphabet for languages that have no close proximity with Latin idioms, but sometimes, since I generally know how the consonants and vowels interact, phonological resonance of a particular word can be a clue to its meaning. Trying to do that with the Cyrillic alphabet would first imply learning the correspondences between the two systems,...

In Portuguese we have a saying, though, that claims "Burro velho não aprende línguas"  (an old donkey will learn no idioms) and popular wisdom is time proven (hence the perennity of aphorisms)....but I'm retiring soon, and trying to learn some Slavic language might not be that bad an idea to integrate in the "things to do, now that I might have the time" folder, so who knows if this old donkey will try to break the rule in the future...

My research first led me to conclude that the stamps were issued in commemoration of Stamp day. (by the way...just to make my point,  applying my phonological resonance theory  to the  main title, which reads ДАН МАРКЕ, provided me with something as DAN MARKE, which would be consistent with "day of the mark" or Stamp Day...).

And here my first perplexity for if in Serbia Stamp day is celebrated in May, in my own country it is celebrated on the 1st December, in France in February or March, ... 

Luckily today we don't need to go to the central library to research the encyclopaedia volumes and after some Wikipedia mostly surfing, I found out that the  Fédération Internationale de Philatélie (FIP) had established in 1937 that World Stamp Day should be commemorated on the 7th January, but that countries would have full liberty to choose another date, according to their conveniences.... I wonder is anyone celebrates Stamp Day on the 7th January...?

This first problem solved, I turned to the Post of Serbia website for information on the stamp since whenever release notes are available these help a lot.

And yes, I discovered that the 30 Dinar stamp on the right hand corner,  issued on 13MAY2022 was the Day of Stamp 2022 issue, entitled " 150 years of Serbian Philately Rarity: Milanče Tête-bêche".

The illustration on the stamp is therefore the only existing pair of  1 Serb para stamps in tête-bêche form (although adjacent, one in printed upside down in relation to the other) of the Prince Milan stamps issued between 1869 and 1880, this particular pair having been part of the 1872 issue.

As a matter of curiosity and still according to the release notes, the last time this item was auctioned, the hammer hit the table at 70,000 Swiss Francs.

The two stamps on the left corner are this year's Dan Mark issues (no, not Denmark,..Dan Mark, Day of Stamp, remember?!), but this time I could not count on the help of the release notes because the link on the site pointed to the next in line issue of the Serbian Post, that is, one dedicated  to Nicolaus Copernicus (who himself was certainly a rarity, but not of the philatelic type). 

Looking at the image on the stamp and the translation of the issue title by the Serbian Post "150 years of the first correspondence card of Serbia" I think the issue, a 48 Dinar stamp, issued on 12May 2023, commemorates the 150 years over the first prepaid, pre-stamped card of Serbia, which would have been issued somewhere in 1873.

On top of the postcard featuring a imprinted Prince Milan 10 para stamp and the coat of arms of the Principality of Serbia is also an image of what looks like one of the stamps issued in 1880/83, with an older Prince Milan (from 1882 on King Milan of Serbia), but with no indication of face value....

Postage was completed with the 4 Dinar ATM Label, also on the cover.

The Postmark indicates that the letter was mailed from Serbia's third largest city, Nis, located in the centre south of the country, midway between Bulgaria and Kosovo.