Pinsk, USSR - British censored postcard WW2

[Michael Dobbs]

I received the following enquiry some time ago and it slipped through the net - any help in being able to determine the date in the postmark in particular, much appreciated:

[color=maroon]I am interested in knowing when in the late 1930s, the British censor stamp was added to pre-paid postal cards. My two UK cousins used pre-paid postal cards to send to relatives still living in what was then the White Russia region of the USSR.

In the autumn of 1939, the USSR took over Pinsk, the town in which our relatives lived. So the stamp (on the card in question) would have to have been put on sometime after that time.

Unfortunately, my Pinsk relatives did not date their letter. Moreover, I have not been able to ascertain a date on the censor stamp. But we can start by noting that the USSR has its postal stamp in the right upper hand corner. The USSR took control of Pinsk on September 17, 1939. They maintained power until the Nazis came on July 4, 1941.[/color]

Many thanks, Mike  :)

[Michael Dobbs]

Re-reading the enquiry again, I think what is required is someone with the ability to decipher the Russian postmark - anyone ??

Thanks, Mike

[Peter High]

I will send copies to my Russian schoolboy correspondent in Siberia and see what comes up.

Peter

[akennedy]

PINSK BSSR
B=Byelorussian = Belarus

[Graham Mark]

The octagonal censor T4 is defintiely British and would have been applied on arrival of the card in Britain.  Without knowing the date of sending the card it is difficult to predict when it might have arrived in this country - no doubt the usual transit time was disrupted.  CCSG has recorded this type of censor in the range T.2 to T.94 between late Dec 39 and early Oct 40 on mail and at  later dates on telegrams.
Graham

[Peter High]

My Russian schoolboy in Siberia got back to me about the card.
Just for the record (I think this was already known) the cancellation reads "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics / Pinsk Town / Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic", and the manuscript (on the L of the card) "Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic / Pinsk Town, Str. Klutsivaya, Number 4, Shapsel Cooper".

Shapsel Cooper was a Jew living in Pinsk.  The message on the other side of the card was written in Yiddish.

[I understand that at the time of writing from Siberia my correspondent says it was snowing and a negative temperature. Nothing new there then!.]