Batum British Occupation 1920 (12 Jan) 50r on 1k orange Type 4 surcharge, SG21.
An imperforate, upper right corner block of 4, fine and fresh, unmounted mint, with full original gum. Minor gum creasing as often seen, which does not detract from what is a spectacular and rare positional multiple.
A very rare stamp as only 400 stamps were originally issued with this surcharge and a major rarity as a block of four in this fine quality.
Accompanied with a Friedl Expert Committee certificate of authenticity (1983).
Stanley Gibbons catalogue value: £3,000+ for mounted mint.
Batumi (formerly Batum) is a city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. The city was under Russian rule at the beginning of World War I, but local unrest led to Turkey entering the city in April 1918, followed by the British in December, who stayed until July 1920.
During the British occupation, the stock of postage stamps started to run out, and so in February 1919 the administration produced its own stamps. These were imperforate, depicted an aloe tree and were inscribed БАТУМСКАЯ ПОЧТА (BATUMSKAYA POCHTA), or "Batum Post."
The British later overprinted these with "BRITISH OCCUPATION", and surcharged the remaining Russian stamps in a variety of styles. Inflation also took hold, and by 1920, the tree stamps, which had been as little as 5 kopecks, had to be reprinted in denominations up to 50 rubles.
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