American Relief Card 1918

[Chris Grimshaw]

Morning Team

Assistance with the card shown on the scans appreciated please.

American Relief Fund preprinted card in Russian & English,  Has two stamps applied with a manuscript cancel of some sort. No other postal or censorship markings apparent.

The card looks genuine and the sort of thing produced by this Relief Mission.  My query is the adhesives and cancel.

Any assistance appreciated. 

Item I'm currently looking at.

Chris

[Sozont Singh]

Chris, hello!
I will try to help.
Hopefully, if I make any mistake, the respected Howard will correct me.

Let's take a close look at the stamp. It is written there in ornate letters "РСФСР" -Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).

"American Relief Card 1918"

But I think the 1918 date is wrong. During the war communism period, catastrophic inflation takes place. On stamps of 1918 prices are written in kopecks, but here they are in rubles, and not just in rubles, but in thousands of rubles.
The overprint of 5,000 rubles spread in 1921-1922.
In 1922-1924, a monetary reform takes place and kopecks will be again written on the stamps of 1923.
In addition, it was 1922 that was the most active period in the work American Relief Administration in РСФСР.
So I believe that this paper should be dated exactly late 1921 or 1922.

[Sozont Singh]

I don't see any special sense in cancel.
This is a common pen cancel. If you look closely, you can see perhaps the number 1 or just a line and the capital letter "A" on the first stamp. On the second stamp, what is drawn is not possible to understand. Maybe these are the initials of the person who made the cancellation.

[Chris Grimshaw]

Hello Sozont

Thank you for your assistance with this item.  Very useful.

Chris

[Peter Gassmann]

the stamp with the overprint was issued in February 1922 (says the Michel Europe Catalogue)

best wishes, Peter