1848 20k dull blue, entire envelope (108:138mm) with imprint on backflap, Eagle with narrow tail, cancelled by pen, sent from "Lenkoran" (a small seaside city in Azerbaijan, near the southern border with Iran) to St. Petersburg, bearing a double-line "Lenkoran Odpra. 12 May, 1857" departure datestamp on front, also "Polucheno 1857/31 May Pold" (received in the afternoon of 31 May) arrival on back, with intact wax seal, fine, with Mikulski certificate "sie ist eine Russland-seltenheit und noch dazu in einer sehr guten und schonen erhaltung" (a great Russian rarity in very nice condition). Probably unique usage of the 1848 stationery entire from Azerbaijan (Image)

Est.$5,000

1899-1903 Advertising lettersheets Empress Maria Fedorovna, three different, two apparently complete, used from Moscow and St. Petersburg, one supplemented with 2k franking, different adlets, mixed condition, mostly fine, scarce used (Image)

Est.$600

1906 10k blue and rose, essay prepared by the Russian delegation to the UPU, complete paid reply card, in letter-card tete-beche format (separated), with bilingual inscriptions "Avec Reponse Payee" and "Reponse", with perforated edges (minor separations noted) all around and on the bottom "detachez la bordure de long du pointille", adhesive markings on back, fine and rare stationery essay, only a few recorded (in the Rossica Journal No.64, Oleg Faberge noted that he had in his collection a double lettercard overprinted "Proekt" and suggested that such a card might also exist without this overprint, but he had not seen one) (Image)

Est.$2,500

1906 (10k) blue, essay prepared by the Russian delegation to the UPU, complete paid reply card, in letter-card tete-beche format, non-denominated, inscriptions in Cyrillic only, perforated; also a postal card, handstamped "Specimen" (Image)

Est.$1,000