You Wait Ages For A Bus…

…and then four come along at once!! The cover shown is a rare mixed franking of a 1/2d vermilion and a Russian Zemstvo 1k violet imperf from Bogorodsk to pay the delivery or printed matter from the UK to Moscow, and then from Moscow to its final destination in the Bogorodsk distrcit. This is not the first Zemstvo and Jubilee combination cover I have seen. However the other two covers I spotted featured different Bogorodsk stamps. This brief tale begins in September, when David Feldman sold a near identical cover to this for €900. It continued yesterday in the USA, when Cherrystone sold another two near identical covers for $1’500 each! And now Cavendish have got in on the act, and are offering the example pictured with an estimate of £300 as part of the Seymour collection of newspaper wrappers in their December auction. It’s stated in the description that, aside from being one of Seymour’s favourite covers, that there are only three such covers known… So either the entire world supply has appeared on the market in the space of three months, or there are a few more than first thought. Either way, it’s still a very rare franking!