Postal Marks That Were Not In The Catalog

When I was a child, there were postcards in almost every home. These times were late in the summer, and now there is only one philatelist among the acquaintances. But what! If Tartakovsky from the Odessa Stories of Isaac Babel was called "a half Jedi", then Edik can safely be called "a half philatelist".

It can be a long story about him, but I will limit myself to one fact from his difficult life. He refused to go to Germany with his wife and children, because “Russian and Soviet marks are not needed there.” Since then, he has lived alone behind the massive steel doors of his Donetsk apartment. We talk to him via Skype several times a year. I call to see if he is alive or not. He calls when something is needed.

Last time I called a week ago. He urged me to send a thousand dollars. He said he would return two and a half in three months.
“Why do they ask you, I ask, to buy back from the chakras?
"No," he says, "there is a possibility to take two sheets of the 69-year Brežnev marks. No one knows exactly how much they are worth, but a thousand is iron. One sheet I will keep for myself, another I will sell in Moscow for five, and we will divide them in half.
Seven and a half thousand to you and a half to me is half? And I risk the money.
Okay, let you have two. And then I risk my life. It’s me going through the blockposts.
After five minutes, we gathered for two and a half and, having finished the earthly, moved to the highest:
What is the Brežnev Mark? I have never heard of such.
I could never hear. This brand is not even in the catalogue.
It does not happen.
It happens. Listen to here! Leonid Ilyich met with front friends twice a year. Not for the picture on TV, but for myself. Once, one of his friends complained that he had written a letter to the address: “Moscow, the Kremlin, L. I. Brezhnev personally,” and the answer did not come. Brežnev instructed the secretary to find out. The next day, the secretary that among the thousands of letters sent to the Secretary-General, one could have been lost. Therefore, for private correspondence, Leonid Ilyich will have a special address consisting only of a postal code and a box number. Like a defense factory. No names, no names. The new address will be notified to all persons on the list of friends. The reverse address of Leonid Ilyich will also not look so noticeable. Brejnev liked the idea and he even developed it: he asked to print a stamp with his portrait, so that it was immediately clear from whom the letter.

Why is the envelope not ready?
I have no idea. Probably forgot that there are such... So, the mark was printed in a printing of not 500, not 1000 copies. Since then, Leonid Ilyich on every personal letter pleased to paste "his" mark, sealed it and passed it to the secretary. The ordinary mail, of course, did not go. The address was delivered by the KGBeshnik and transferred to the opening and reading. After reading, it was removed under a signature on non-disclosure, sealed in a special package and sent to the archive. There these letters lie to this day... along with the marks. Cute philatelists know about them, but no one has them.

Where did they sail from?
“These two blocks of 10 marks were taken by an officer who commanded the cleaning of the Brezhnev cabinet after his death. He thought it was ordinary marks and took it for his son. His son did not like them, and he changed them with his classmate. In the summer, the classmate was sent to Mariupol to his grandfather - a philatelist, he took with him the marks he collected for the year. Grandfather was a small collector, but like any Greek, he had a good smell and developed sense of danger. In short, the brands, which did not appear in the catalogue, he took from his grandson and told only a few friends about the finding. I know this story from one of them, the earth is puffy to him. My grandfather died this spring, he was almost 100 years old. The heirs for the entire collection want a thousand dollars. The rest is probably rubbish, but this is a case where it is not worth negotiating.

How do you know they are not fake?
Paper, stamp, glue and toothpaste. A brand is a product of technology, everything must correspond to time and place. I am an expert in this. According to the story, this is a colorful vinyl portrait. In the photo I received it was exactly like that.
Can you take a photo of me?
“Simply,” said Edick and dropped off.

After two days of reflection, I was almost ready to risk my blood. Anyway, the extra money has not bothered anyone. The matter was small: something in the picture confused me, but what exactly I could not understand. On the third day I woke up in the middle of the night, opened Wiki’s article “Brezhev’s Prizes” and read that “Serp and Hammer” he received in 1961, the first “Golden Star” – in 1966, and the second – even ten years later in 1976. So, I said to myself, the third star on the 1969 mark can not be, somebody pairs a foul, my affair is on the side. With a light movement, he dropped a heavy load of doubts from his shoulders and instantly fell asleep.

Before, when I was told that Soviet education was the best in the world, I began to argue. Now I will be silent. I will not tell you that the knowledge of Brejnev’s biography, obtained not only for free, but also largely forcibly, can save you a thousand full-weight U.S. dollars. No one will believe it anyway.

P.S Gentlemen of Philadelphia! Specifically for you I posted the image of the “brand” at https://abrp722.livejournal.com/ in my Live Journal. You can go there, you can just press “Source”. You will also be offered the Brezhnevskaya-69.