Two more issues I have to take from Sakura: Red Cross Society of Manchukuo 5th anniversary and 2nd anniversary of the "Greater East Asian War".
"Manchurian-Japanese friendship",issued Oct.1st(?),1943. The se-tenant printed pairs show the inscription: "Japan´s progress is the progress of Manchuria" In Chinese on the upper and in Japanese on the lower stamps.
Manchukuo´s last postage stamp,issued May 2nd,1945,commemorates the 10th anniversary of the "Imperial Edict".(I don´t know,what the edict was about)
No postage stamps,but postal saving stamps.Issued March 1st,1941 (upper) and 1945 (lower).Face value: 10 Fen. At the end of the war the Soviet Union occupied Manchukuo. Existing stamps were overprinted with handstamps by many postmasters.More than 2000 different stamps exist. The southern part of Manchukuo was given back to Nationalist China. Stamps of North-East-Provinces came into use. The northern part of Manchukuo remained occupied and was later given to the communist government.Stamps for North-East-China were issued till 1951 with many parallel-issues (from up 1949) to that of the P.R.C.-issues.In 1951 a currency reform united the different valutas in the P.R.C. For the Kuantung-Peninsular (Dairen and Port Arthur),what was incorporated into Japan since 1906,separate stamps were issued from 1946 till 1950.The early ones,overprints on Manchukuo or Japan stamps are expensive.
Another occupied country during WW II was Poland. In the years 1772 - 1795 Poland was divided in three steps between Russia,Austria and Prussia. After WW I Poland was re-established as a sovereign state. WW II started with the german attack on Poland in 1939. Prior to that,in the Hitler-Stalin-Pact,Germany and Russia had agreed to divide Poland in between them again. Russia got the eastern parts of Poland (and kept them after the war ended !) and Germany got the bigger part. Most of the polish provinces,what Germany had lost after WW I,as well as some parts,formerly ruled by Austria, were re-integrated into the Deutsches Reich. The remaining parts were established as a protectorate, the "General-Gouvernement". The General-Gouvernement,similar to the other protectorate Böhmen and Mähren (Bohemia and Moravia),kept it´s own currency: 1 Zloty divided into 100 Groschen (Groszy). 2.- Zloty were equivalent to 1.- RM (Reichsmark). The first stamp-series,issued on Dec.1st,1939 was an occupational series,similar to those of Elsaß,Lothringen and Luxembourg,inscribed "Deutsche Post Osten" (German Post East): (part I of 2)
Your Batum stamp has one of the 6 transfer type traits The overprint has 2 distinct fakes and this is neither The color is fine once the scan background is removed
Overprinted stamps of Poland were issued in March (8th/18th) 1940: (part I of 7),issued March 18th,1940
(part III of 7),issued March 8th,1940 The 50 Gr. exists in two different overprint types: type I: larger distance between the values and text lines (shown) type II: smaller distance (value about ten times of type I)
(part VII of 7),issued March 18th,1940 This is the last part of the overprints.I have shown them in the order Michel cat. lists them. The last part are overprinted postage due stamps of Poland,what were made so to regular stamps. Among these is the stamp with the lowest printing quantity of all overprints.It is the 50 on 30 Gr. (middle row).20.600 stamps were printed.By comparison the 24 on 25 Gr. (part II,last stamp) had the highest printing quantity with 3.4 millions. The overprints remained valid for postage till Nov.30th,1941.
Less than four months after the first service stamps,the low values were issued in a smaller size on July 22nd (20,30,40,50 Gr.),others Aug.5th,1940.There is no 48 Gr. value in this set.
